The Poles of Iraq
by SeleccionPeruana
Summary: Dora-the-Kid himself had participated in Iraq War before, and now, when he has gone to discover Heavenly Host with mysterious deaths there, he decides to take time remembering the Poles who fought in Iraq with his countrymen. On the mean times, he also notices about Heavenly Host, and to take ready if there are anything out of control. He will collect some stories while...
1. Tadeusz Marcinowski

_**Following the announcement of President George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein's dismissal, the United States declared their intervention against Saddam's Iraq, in hope to liberate Iraq from the tyranny of dictator Saddam Hussein …**_

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 _A year later_

Baghdad, Iraq

In there, a man came to the old Al-Shaab Stadium. Al-Shaab Stadium used to be the execution ground of Saddam when Saddam wanted to execute someone opposing him. In there, the White Eagle existed, too.

"Tadeusz! Mamy tam pracę! Nasi amerykańscy przyjaciele czekają na nas!" ( _Tadeusz! We have a job there! Our American friends are waiting for us!_ )

They were the Poles.

They wore the badge of the Home Army, a symbol of Polish resistance during the World War II against Nazi and Soviet invaders. In honor to them, the Home Army's symbol has become their symbol, too. The GROM!

Of course this is not the official badge since their official badge features a flying eagle. But it is symbolic and fantastic.

 _ **Tadeusz Marcinowski, 25 years old**_

There had a soldier, his name was Tadeusz. Tadeusz was incredibly influent in English, since Poland was the only non-English speaking country to participate alongside the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Poland's reason to join was simple: to confirm they are a stun ally of the United States and the West.

The Poles had always been remembered for their bravery throughout history in whole Western world. For the Americans, who else forget the story of Tadeusz Kościuszko and Casimir Pulaski, two Polish heroes in the American Revolution. For the Britons, the Poles also formed a large diaspora community there. The story of how the Poles repelled the Turks, fought against repeated invasions from Germany, Sweden and Russia, occupying Moscow to even defying Prussia before, made them a great people.

Tadeusz Marcinowski, whom his mom named him after legend Tadeusz K., also kept a book about the United States and Polish community. He kept reading even when he walked out until he faced up his counterpart from the U.S.

Even when he had a book, this could not change the fact he was a real and talented warrior, standing strong. Of course, he was quite shorter, mostly looked like a dwarf because he only had 1.64m, but he was a fearsome member of the GROM. He raised his arm to his head:

"Tadeusz Marcinowski, reported!"

"Well done. David C. Kang, United States Armed Forces SEAL sniper."

Kang was of Korean origin. Tadeusz, for most part, remembered the Koreans from the TV, especially during the 1990s. He always felt sympathetic to Korea and Koreans, notably following the Korean War; and he had his reasons to do such thing. He understood what the Russians and the Chinese did the Korea, because he saw the same thing in Poland.

Kang was a specific sniper of the SEALs. He had killed 20 insurgents when he just first landed to Iraq for two months, and had provided a great amount of military respect. C. Kang himself was also born in a traditional military family, dated back from Goguryeo era before they emigrated to the U.S. at 1951. His brother was also a cadet in West Point.

"Nice to see young Kang."

"No problem, too. Myself Korean American, I always hear about the Poles in history. They are extremely brave and courageous people. Now, the GROM proves it right again."

"Kang, it is an honor for me. I have heard about Koreans as a kid, my friend is also a Korean."

"As we can say, the Poles always have a tradition, and so are the Koreans."

They both spent time to walk over and over, seeing the situation in Iraq as temporary stabilized. However, increasing insurgents, both Sunni and Shiite radicals, caused concerns. Iranian regime had used Iraqi instability to arm their Shiite allies, and since Iraq is a majority Shiite country, it's not good. Other side, Al-Qaeda tried to regain its foothold also encouraged Sunni fanatics to do the same.

Of course, the allies were ready to face them. And they had their jobs to do!

…

Tadeusz arrived to Fallujah with his fellow Polish-American warriors had guaranteed the safety there, but it could not judge out that security there had declined seriously. Because of increasing terrible conditions, they could be assaulted anytime. Kang, on the other side, stayed in Baghdad.

Tadeusz received order from the new arrival, Michał Basch, over the threat from the Al-Qaeda. Basch, whom himself is of German descent through his grandmother, showed his German strength in spite of wearing Polish military uniform.

"Uważaj! Tutaj chodzą nieznani ludzie. Musieli się zakryć. Lokalizacja 3-0-5 w Faludży, rozumiesz?" ( _Look out! Here we have some unknown people walking. They must have covering themselves. Location 3-0-5 in Fallujah, got it?_ )

"Okay!"

Tadeusz was a serious person, but he never stops being comedian. He used to study comedy entertainment prior to going to the military. He sometimes mocked other in a very, very Polish way, and each of us could not stop laughing. The Poles are also very funny people too, and we had no reason to regret it at all.

There were some Kurdish girls assisted us as part of special force Peshmerga, an official army of regional Kurdistan in Iraq, outside the jundis. Along them all, both respected the Kurds more than those Iraqi jundis, because of high professionalism among Kurds.

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Here we go! In Fallujah, Tadeusz watched a while until he reported to the American counterparts. Soon after, they requested the Polish GROM, or full name is _Jednostka Wojskowa GROM im. Cichociemnych Spadochroniarzy Armii Krajowej_. GROM in Polish mean _Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego_ (Group Operational Maneuvering Response).

As I claimed before, the GROM is widely acclaimed for their incredible response against Islamic terrorism and their troops are among the most elite in Europe. This gave them an extreme reputation and thus, when Poland joined the war, we often relied on the GROM.

Tadeusz, a GROM soldier, was no exception.

"Cel jest w środku. Otocz je w dwóch rogach. Główny skład uderzy z dachu." ( _Target is inside. Surround them in two corner. The main squad will hit from the roof._ )

The GROM soldiers quickly entered inside and they took down any insurgents inside by their deadly silent firing. Within five minutes, all areas had been secured and it was just the time for the U.S. Marines to occupy the rest of the mysterious building. The Poles stormed other buildings and they received zero casualties. All targets they needed had been done fairly well. A perfect 10 if I wanted.

Tadeusz, of course, played a minimal role, but being a GROM member, he had to identify and to help clarify the targets before the whole team could enter. Tadeusz did very well, and further bolstered the reputation of the Poles in the conflict.

Well, the U.S. has always been considered as reckless based on the overwhelming advantages. The Poles showed another side, they could do anything even being overwhelmed. Totally opposite side of course.

The Poles didn't forget to mention the Vietnam War, when Poland was under the communists, the way the Vietcong fought remained a relevant lesson. This also explained their brilliant of course.

Tadeusz Marcinowski himself had a friend who is a Vietnamese immigrant to Poland, as their family settled in the country at 1960s. He knew the Vietnam War by his late father, and this lesson gave the Poles significant knowledge to speak the Americans about how to win the people instead of trying to damage. Both agreed that the Vietcong was unable to defeat the U.S. militarily due to inferiority; but the loss of South Vietnam remains a tragedy for many American veterans because they underestimated the anger of Vietnamese population. The Poles

Tadeusz's friend was also in service at Iraq, too, but in a different brigade. I hoped to see him sooner or later. And it was an amazing experience in Fallujah, though I watched it from far away.

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Tadeusz Marcinowski resigned from the army in 2008, and he is now working as a comedian. He has a daughter, too, who moved to Nagoya, Japan with her mother due to job condition. His wife and his daughter continued to contact with him but his daughter is even more funnier, she loves anime to a level she tagged herself similar to Nogizaka Haruka. Oh my …

I will always love them … I like Tadeusz, he is very simple yet amazing.


	2. Jerzy Jereszczenko

I walked within the Heavenly Host of course. I saw everything is so dark, deep, ugly and even human meats. But what had stunned me to a level of the brutality within the mysterious cursing school. It used to known as Tenjin, but closed. For some reasons, those kids claimed they had seen something mysterious. Even if I compare to Russia's Winter Palace, nothing could be weirder than this school.

I saw many dead bodies, decapitated people, including bones and tongues, too. I could not speak anything else but shocking horrible to it. Even comparing to the image of the Gulf War in Kuwait, no way considerable anyway. I hate that.

When I walked on and on, I surprisingly stopped and my head bowed down to see a body. Looking on how the body lies, and the face of the person, I quietly sat down.

It was a girl. A very young lady, but now lies there without her head. I didn't lose too much to realize this immediately where was her head. At the time she died, I even discovered her ID card. Hah! I usually don't want to take a shit, but this case was fun. I checked on to see the name of the unlucky woman, and because I can speak Japanese, it isn't too hard to read.

"Yui Shishido."

How surprising. It reminded a tragic feeling of course, but after I saw her head, I put her body lies in the wall and her head into her body's chest. As I sat down too, I just wondered …

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2005

Anbar Province, Iraq

 _ **Jerzy Jereszczenko, 30 years old**_

Jerzy Jereszczenko.

A Polish name, sure. But he was actually not a Pole, he came from a minority people in Poland, the Ukrainians. As I saw from his face, he was truly not like a normal Pole. And I was not wrong at all.

Jerzy Jereszczenko was a Polish Ukrainian. His family could be traced back from the day he survived from the tragic Holodomor caused by Joseph Stalin. Back then the Polish state didn't treat Ukrainians really good, but for many, life in Poland was better than in Soviet Union, or we could understand simply, Russia.

He was a trilingual. Outside being able to speak Polish and Ukrainian, he could also understand Russian, German and Belarusian. I knew Russian, so I was able to talk with him well. He escorted Chris Kyle together (you can enjoy _American Sniper_ of him), and Kyle pretty much had a lot of sense. Kyle was a serious person. Outside Kang, Kyle must be on my head too.

Okay, I must take it seriously. Really?

Jerzy himself was notable for being a new recruit of the GROM in Iraq. For Jerzy, being in Iraq had been a great deal for him and he just felt that, he should do for the duty of his country. He felt that, so.

Jerzy came out and ran into there, took the order. At that time, the Australians reported about the existence of several Taliban officials, and Jerzy decided to walk out. However, Chris didn't join Jerzy and his men, instead Jerzy would be deployed to another place. I joined Jerzy and saw the situation in the Iraqi conflict more complicated, especially in Anbar.

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Ramadi, Iraq

Ramadi was a hell-hole!

Hell! I am an American! He is a Pole. And the Poles are our ally since the might of Casimir Pulaski. Pulaski himself has been taught by Americans for generation of how a legend defended the U.S. against the British. There was also another Polish hero, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, so we were eager to work with the Poles.

We had several snipers there. Including David C. Kang, the Korean sniper of our force, Kang himself was denied an opportunity after being injured in a surprising assault, but the wound wasn't so serious and he quickly returned to the battlefield. Kang was determined to take vengeance against those who shot him, and his sense showed that the opponent must be in Ramadi.

Back to Jerzy, Jerzy was asked to make clear the area by spotting the traps set up by the insurgents. The GROM, due to its fearsome ability, had been recently targeted by Al-Qaeda and so on, GROM had to hunt them down. The Polish President, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, had been under pressure to retreat the Armed Forces away. Polish public opinions also showed that Poland needed to withdraw from Iraq was increasing, despite yet to happen.

Jerzy and four fellow GROM fighters decided to clear an area believed to be under the insurgents. As usual, the GROM unit did very well and they looked on the other Islamic insurgents there.

"Area cleared!"

Spotted on! The Poles finally broke the noise and let we Americans to take charge in. Kang showed the signal as well to make it able to get over. We tried to blunder the situation on some ways, but at least we needed to take a smoke before going somewhere. These Marlboro smokes handled us a plenty of time.

"Hey Kang! Do you need something else?"

"No need. I am gonna beef the shit down, soon!"

"How about Taylor?"

"Nah, he's fine, too."

Kang's partner, Taylor O'Ganahan, was an amateur sniper of the U.S. Armed Forces being deployed to there. O'Ganahan mostly worked under Kang's advises, but what I liked from O'Ganahan is hard-working and very determined regardless of circumstances. That hell Irish boy often had to bring a Catholic cross with him because he believed on luck and bless of Virgin Mary.

Jerzy remained completely aware of the situation, and he posted a message that it would be too early to get involved. The insurgents were not that stupid, they had moved side-by-side to avoid direct confrontation. If they battled the U.S. troops directly, it would become a total humiliation. Those Iranian proxies knew well.

Jerzy, however had a special connection with Iran. His mother was a daughter of an unknown Polish soldier fleeing from Soviet gulags at World War II and resided in Iran as refugee. Back then, Iran was under the Shah and very friendly to us, until 1979. For Jerzy, seeing those mollahs ruling Iran today was the most disgusting thing ever happened.

Jerzy held a cat. A pure Persian white cat. His mother loved cats so much and she even adopted cats, but Jerzy's mom died following a traffic crash with her cat, and Jerzy felt a deep duty to keep the cat as a souvenir for his late mother.

Jerzy continued to spot on with the GROM whilst we Marines walked within buildings and buildings, streets and streets. The Poles were extremely good on warning, again.

Then, when we were going through, suddenly, there was a shot!

Bam!

We saw and it was a trash can. Empty trash can and when we saw within, it was a body of an insurgent. He was killed when he tried to show up and shoot us. And guess who?

"I told you, they are trapping us anywhere. Only lucks have saved us."

Jerzy.

Jerzy once again warned us about it and the Poles proved to be worthy. Jerzy with his GROM partners, one of them I knew was Mateusz, did this by shooting to several places that believed to be the hideout of the insurgents. Some fanatic fighters from Chechnya and Dagestan, both are parts of Russia, were also spotted by Polish pioneers. They did a decent job, so deserved to be remembered as brave Polish warriors in the past.

As I reminded, the Poles were fearsome warriors, and their history was nothing but useful. I read " _God's Playground_ " when Poland was still under communist rule, surely no one would forget the brave Poles. Again, they showed us how worthy the Poles could be, their snipers and pioneers' capabilities impressed us.

Jerzy was instrumental on it.

Jerzy continued to follow his GROM warriors to attract false targets and paving ways for the Marines, therefore we Marines could have taken down many insurgents as possible. None of these GROM warriors were killed, while we Marines suffered small casualties, two of us were injured.

Kang also played a role there. He used his hawk eyes to takedown a number of insurgents, but from what I viewed on him, he wasn't satisfied because his target didn't exist there. The Koreans are very determined and brutal, so if you let the Koreans to punch on you, it will be a painful moment. Same thing to speak on Kang, our Korean sniper.

Definitely!

Jerzy ran into a minaret where he surprisingly face-to-face a young insurgent. He was just 9 years old, but Jerzy's gruesome face scared the little boy. He could not hold the gun and then started to cry. The GROM troops, with little knowledge of English and Arabic, didn't know how to do, but they guessed the kid was forced to join the fight so they took the kid away from the minaret. This corner of Ramadi was finally cleared when we had only 4 injuries. All remaining insurgents were either killed or surrendered.

What had Jerzy contributed?

Very simple: joining the GROM and making his team a false target to help the Marines clear out those insurgents. Of course they also killed a number of them, too. Well done, Jerzy, well done. We Marines must salute the Poles for their actions, but I must say, with an army that just receiving new modern U.S. weapons, the Poles did good.

…

Returning back to the base in an unknown place in Anbar Province, outside Ramadi over 10 km, I felt it was great! Damn it, I killed four, Kang killed 7, others killed same number of mine, I guessed so.

The GROM themselves killed at least 5 insurgents and captured a kid one. They carried him back before sending him to the orphanage where we would expect to see his family to receive him back. Kang was the only to show dissatisfaction as his target didn't show up. Before that, he found his route and mentioned over Ramadi, but … it didn't come.

For Jerzy, it was fine. Taylor? He would remain as part of Kang's group until he resigned. I must state on and on and on. Yeah, hell bitches! Get it?

And yes, …

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Jerzy Jereszczenko would later continue to participate on GROM's mission until Poland's withdrawal in 2008. After that, Jerzy decided to resign and he is currently working as a marketer. He also owns a private blog too. He also has a lot of cats on his home, because of his love to this little demon. He married and had three kids, one daughter, two sons.

Jerzy's life would have remained simply as possible if the Ukrainian unrest didn't occur later. After the Euromaidan, Jerzy Jereszczenko, because of his Ukrainian birth, was the first Poles to voice criticisms against Russia and calling for the overthrow of pro-Russian Government in Kiev. He also reorganized his blog with Polish and Ukrainian flags, showing solidarity with his native Ukraine, and has posted a number of blogs written in Polish and Ukrainian, as well as Russian, to an extent my Russian friend feels that he is a bit too anti-Russian although he [my friend] shares sympathy for the situation. He is also active on the _Solidarity Society for Ukraine_ , a non-merit organization in Poland for Polish Ukrainians and even Poles to join; formed following the Russian annexation of Crimea. It has 10 thousand followers.

As I expressed in Russian: "Польша всегда Польша", which mean _Poland always Poland_ , do you agree? Yes.

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And now, no longer be soldier, I was, instead, sitting with a headless woman body. Yui Shishido, you were the irony there, lol.

And I would not ask about such as headless body to speak or listen. Damn because she lies there, and holding a head thanked for me! Now, sitting beside, I just wondered to her body with the hands holding the head. It was enough creppy crap for me, but I hate to speak again.

I just feel sympathetic but I will never understand how could she get decapitated and the head fell out from body. Poor girl.

"So, what do you think I should continue speaking another story?"

Of course, she is headless, so she could not answer. But look on her soul, I guess yes. So …

"Alright, well, I stay with the Poles, and so on, I still have my memoir. At least in this damn place called Heavenly Host …"

She still held the head herself and didn't respond, but I believed her soul was ready to listen …


	3. Wojciech Wo

And yeah, c'mon!

I sit with a headless body, and spoke lonely with nothing to share overall. WTF I didn't think about that much either but yeah, you girls should remember to keep your head with the neck later.

I took on, and then, I wondered what would have gone next, because, I got a story I … did not wish to know at all …

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Ramadi, Iraq

Still in the same city, we began to hear about the story of a fearsome sniper of the U.S. Army, a SEAL member who shot accurately a lot of insurgents in Iraq, especially in Ramadi. Those insurgents surely put a lot of bounty for his head when I saw on and on. David C. Kang, who later transferred to Afghanistan, praised him for being a tough sniper.

I heard it: Chris Kyle.

Kyle, a new sniper, used to shoot several insurgents, but his name only became popular after he traveled to Ramadi. When? When he had successfully slaughtered a bunch of insurgents. And for me, it was a good thing happened. Brilliant!

But then, I had to remember …

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…

 _ **Wojciech Wo, 25 years old**_

Wojciech Wo.

And yes, the person Tadeusz spoke to me. Son of a Vietnamese family emigrating to Poland at 1970s, his father and his mother adopted to be perhaps, Polish citizens and remained within the country, and Wojciech went to be a Pole for this.

However, his life was full of trauma. His father was murdered in Belarus following gang violence in Borisov. His mom later died by traffic accident in Slovakia, when he was young, so he went to live with his grandmother. So he was even unluckier than Tadeusz.

Tadeusz had read about Vietnamese history, as I claimed, so he always shared a deep sympathy to Wojciech. He viewed the Vietnamese with a level of sympathy either. As most Poles are very unaware of Vietnam outside its large Vietnamese population integrating well in Polish society, Tadeusz's understanding is large, and perhaps helped us to see why Vietnam received a level of sympathy for Polish people.

Wojciech Wo always had a feeling that very strange of being a son of Poland and his loose connection with his homeland. In the past, when both were communist (now Vietnam stills, Poland no more), the Poles knew the Vietnam War, but very few Poles knew Vietnamese history. So like most of Westerners, like me.

After 1975, when South Vietnam collapsed, Vietnamese refugees fled the country in large, we started to learn about their history more, and we found it was more complicated. So, I quickly watched back the memoir _Why Vietnam?_ of Archimedes Patti.

He was right.

A lot of American veterans, whom they fought in Vietnam very bloody to protect our South Vietnam ally and failed, have always discussed whatever the war should happen. Some blamed the Truman and Johnson Administrations for failing to understand the dream of communist Ho. Some believed the exact opposite, expecting the U.S. should have waged a total war to exterminate the communist North. They continued to discuss whatever they should be ally of Ho or not, and some of them went divided as well, neither agreed on which way, because looking the consequences in various way.

But Vietnamese in the United States are totally different than Polish Vietnamese. The Vietnamese in our country mostly consists Southerners, so they hate communist government is understandable; Vietnamese in Poland, however, because of long historical tie based on communist era, they tend to be okay with the current regime, despite Poland is now an ally of the U.S.

I came out a bit …

"Wojciech!"

"Tadeusz!"

Yes, Tadeusz and Wojciech. They shared same age, same month being born. Wojciech and Tadeusz shared same schools except universities, that's what Tadeusz told me. Wojciech Wo, who himself had a Vietnamese origin, joined the Polish Armed Forces, but wasn't part of the GROM. Instead, he worked as a paratrooper.

Being a paratrooper was great, but I had very little idea how the Polish Army construct themselves. But, I do agree in an extent, Polish paratroopers had their different than Polish GROM.

I saw that Wojciech was relatively quiet. Outside few people he knew like Tadeusz, he didn't talk very much. Wojciech usually had a book to read with. As I took smoking, I got a bit bizarre with him.

"Hey, you!"

"So?"

Wojciech was a smart guy. The Vietnamese in Poland are often regarded in a more positive way than negative way, because they integrated so well in Poland, and demanded nothing at all. Wojciech could speak English, I still remember that.

"Do you have any idea, paratrooper?"

"I have my way to do. There is nothing new much."

"Do you know Christopher Kyle?"

"Uhhhmmmm, you Americans say that, he is the fearsome Ramadi sniper. I feel okay, not much. We can only confirm when it comes to fight."

He didn't even bother Chris Kyle, our best sniper! Really? I didn't understand what's going on for, leave alone please …

Wojciech, again, spoke:

"Do you Americans always exaggerate yourself? We Poles actually help you so much and then there are only news covering about the U.S. and British, Australian troops fighting?"

"No, we aren't biased! Every men are equal, as claimed by Thomas Jefferson."

"Really?" Wojciech pointed on the CNN and CNBC coverages, and very rare footages about Polish troops. Wojciech himself wanted to see more Polish contributions, rather.

Then, our Marines suddenly appeared and took a man, with beard. An insurgent from Ramadi was captured, and I, right now, had a brief understanding in Arabic, I soon knew he was our captive. So, I and Wojciech decided to escort him into the chair, and tied him. I also got interested on tortures, because I have to live with brutality.

So, I have my rod. An electric rod ready to beat him. From my Marines' report, he was an insurgent named Khaled Ali Ghazar, from Yemen but came to Iraq following the invasion. Iraqis and Yemenis are all Arab countries, just I could recognize their dialect a bit. Iraqis speak Mesopotamian with Persian, Kurdish and Turkish influence. Yemenis speak in what I believed as pure Arabic, since Arabs are thought to trace origin from Yemen.

His pure Arabic helped me to realize where he from.

"أنت متمرد الشيطان المثالي ، المتمرد؟" ( _You are a typical faggot wannabe, insurgent?_ )

Wojciech also participated, but he felt Khaled didn't want to take response. Wojciech knew that torturing Khaled might not help, but I wasn't aware.

"سنكون على اتصال." ( _We will be in touch._ )

Being influent in Arabic is an extremely difficult job, but I did get a degree of it. So I was easier to be. Then I bang on his face. I beat him hard, and it was good ya.

As I was beating Khaled, Wojciech approached me and suggested that I should look carefully. According from Wojciech, he felt Khaled was planning for a trap and his men might try to do something over it, citing that prior to be beaten by me, he suffered very little injury, totally abnormal.

Wojciech's warning was indeed, something I sensed about. After having beaten Khaled, he still smiled, no matter how painful his face. So he might have been trapping us for something. Wojciech suggested that he would volunteer himself out, while I kept staying inside. Quick enough, I took my air gun, aiming on his head.

"If you run away, your head will be blown."

I had no reason to get scared of. As I looked out, Wojciech also grabbed an Uzi with him. These motherfuckers might have been …

…

…

…

" **BOOM!** "

An explosion. And following it was a series of attacks. I could hear gun fires, and there were responses. Both from the jundis, our Marines and even insurgents. They launched the attack!

Fuck them!

"Damn. Wojciech, what the hell you just got?" I asked.

"Nothing. My mom was a Buddhist, so she taught me how to be like before she died."

"Let's go and take the damn hell of these faggots!"

I and Wojciech did a decent job. We started to fight and fight fiercely, when our snipers, including the SEAL one Kyle, shot too. Today was Wojciech's birthday, when he gonna be 26. With Kyle, as I stated for a navy SEAL, his fearsome accuracy once again helped us limiting damages from those insurgents. To remind, Kyle's base was in Fallujah.

Wojciech was also deadly accurate on his killing. He took down over 12 insurgents just by using Uzi, a fairly good result. The U.S. Marines, British and Australians did crush a number of insurgents, but the surprise attack also caused us a number of casualties. We lost two men in that, though.

The Polish boy was extremely powerful. He could run without feeling tired. But he told it was because the Poles must be brave. History taught them that, fighting numerous invaders from Russia, Turkey, Germany, Sweden and Austria bolstered their reputation.

I wonder did the Vietnam War affect Polish memory or not, but _Zawsze in battle_ could be described there. Fun word using from the original "in love" one, and changed it.

Wojciech kept running throughout the wall where he jumped and killed another insurgents. His parkour skills showed that he had practiced and learnt it well. No reason to dislike, this parkour boy was awesome fighter.

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In the end, we had killed 100 of them. On individuals, I killed only 9, or 10. Wojciech killed 12, much better than me.

Tadeusz also killed 8. So, as for the result, this attack took away 3, and injured 11. I will never forget them.

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…

After that, Wojciech told me to kill Khaled, and I accepted. I just did the best I could, and done.

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…

To remind that, Chris Kyle would later go on to become the "Devil of Ramadi" for his accuracy, and because of his deadly accuracy, many insurgents raised bounty for his head. He still survived and later returned home safe, with the record of most killing on his career. Same as me, he was a Texan native, not surprise that I found his accent easier to understand for me.

Wojciech Wo would continue his fight in Iraq until 2007, when he was transferred to Afghanistan as a medic. He worked in Afghanistan for two years before he returned home. There was a brief of time he could watch the UEFA Euro 2008, when Poland marked its debut there. Wojciech, for you to know, he was a devout Roman Catholic, and he often attended Catholic Church to pray before fighting. Totally different than his mother.

I went to Islam for five years until I murdered a renown Imam who was funding Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Turkey, which I decided to go to Eastern Orthodoxy to cut my connection with the Prophet. I changed my religion twice, from Presbyterian, to Sunni Muslim and today, an Orthodox Christian of Eastern Church. Islam did teach me much when I came to Mecca and Medina.

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Set out from religion, I heard their life later was an extreme tragedy.

For Wojciech Wo, after he returned to Poland, he tried to run his business as a ceramic enterprise, but after being fouled, he went bankrupt. Later, his sister, Magdalena, was murdered in Thailand because of love dispute, devastated his life and leaving her only daughter for him to raise. He eventually had to send her 3 years old daughter to an orphan in Kraków. His girlfriend from Slovakia was later also found dead because she also suffered harassment following her family's bankruptcy as well.

Wojciech, could not stand the pain, decided to commit suicide in 2013 at Szczecin. Having suffered childhood tragedies, now even after going to military and be back, the bad luck continued to follow him, perhaps leaving this world is the best option for him to be released from the pain. Tadeusz, of course, was the most shocked one and when he went to meet the Vietnamese community in the city, Tadeusz blamed himself for not going to cheer him. Wojciech Wo rested in peace in military grave of Powązki, with the highest honored for a brave man.

About Chris Kyle, well, you know, he later returned home safe and he raised a lot of issues about U.S. veterans. But in the same year Wojciech died, a week before Wojciech's suicide, Chris was murdered. When I heard about Chris' murder, I could not understand why Chris, a good man, could now become the person of the other world.

In Christopher's funeral, many people saluted him, while his wife, Taya, could not stand the tragedy either …

…

…

…

…

…

* * *

#####

Today, I stay in Heavenly Host, after I decided to go discover within. And sitting with a headless body, again.

Well, you heard it.

"Okay, I'm done, and, that's enough for me. You girl have something to cheer, now."

Yeah …

But I must go. If I don't try to take some risks, maybe we would never know how many fuckers were in there.

I was done, for now … and it tasted good for me.

…

"Good bye, headless lady."

I walked away, leaving the body behind. I needed to discover something that haunted the Kisaragi school. So, just move on …


	4. Maciej Kerzakow

_**They walked on and on with no hesitation, as they kept being determined …**_

…

…

…

…

…

Having seen the headless body of Yui Shishido, I would be even more shocked to see how many students of other schools might have been trapped, and even got killed. Including adults, too. Damn you, ya!

I didn't think much about it. The best option was how to get the hell out, virtually by haunting down the ghost.

When I walked away by showing the light hidden inside the small Catholic cross, since I maintain my connection with Vatican, I soon discovered another body I got interested. The same way of dying, like Yui's body, of course.

Fuck this!

Again, a headless body. A bit younger. So I decided to look upon, as well as her ID card. Yup …

…

…

"Seiko Shinohara. Wow …"

This time, I truly felt sorry. Wow, even when I saw a little boy in Iraq shot dead by our snipers, nothing is more tragic to see a headless body wearing sailor uniform. Well, in Asian traditions, sailor uniform, mostly for girls, are school girls. This is a wide known fact.

As an American myself, there is only a word for this: R.I.P.

When I examined the body myself, and seeing the head floating on the ground, I just quietly understood that, I had a memoir I didn't want to …

…

…

…

…

…

* * *

#####

2005

Ramadi, Iraq

Sometimes I just sat there and then, I felt completely nothing.

Of course, I would have remained like that, had there been no newcomer. But, what later surprised me was the story of a man who came there.

There was an outside quarrel between a member of the SEAL and a Polish officer over what they should deal with Iraq's worsening situation. The Poles, who joined us the most, had shown their deep dissatisfaction over the way the organization was running to settle the situation in Iraq. They expressed there would be a worse scenario in Iraq due to lack of security there, and poorly-trained Iraqi troops.

While I am not denying about how terrible Iraqi Army was, the situation might have been tenser had I not intervened. I decided to take my ass and get over soon.

"Wow, what the hell is going on, damn you?"

When I got my face, I was glad to know the Polish officer.

 _ **Maciej Kerżakow, 38 years old**_

Maciej stated that he disputed the way the U.S. is doing in Iraq as unsuccessful. I tried to address him that to bring it in a private talk. Because of my good relations with the GROM, I felt easier to get in touch with the Poles more. Sometimes, some Poles felt the U.S. was untrustworthy on our way of doing, Maciej just plain explained for.

Maciej was a respected person. Maciej himself was a participant on the Solidarity uprising in Poland in late 1980s that overthrow the communist regime and establishing the Third Republic like today. The Poles still blamed the United States for not doing anything when the Solidarity at earlier 1980s was suppressed by the communists.

So their way of dealing was understandable.

"Maciej, do you think that, why should we reform the current Government of Iraq?"

"Because, I know how extremely hard to be under authoritarian rule."

Maciej's ancestral heritage is an extremely complicated one. Maciej had a Russian origin, dated back to the time the Russian troops burnt the city of Warsaw following 1792 war. A Colonel under supervision of Gen. Alexander Suvorov, Vasily Kerzhakov, sheltered a Polish woman whom he later fell in love with. It was their secret marriage that gave him a distinct Russian ancestry. During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, his grandfather fought for Home Army of Poland against the Nazis until the Soviets delayed their support to see complete annihilation of Polish army, so the pain was high.

Poland has a long tradition of being bi-national, so Maciej's Russian origin is accepted, although Russia is surely hated by many Poles.

Some Korean officers in Iraq were also extremely tough guys, Maciej did get in and had good times with. Both of them criticized the way we handling Iraq, too. Such a time to remember for me.

David C. Kang was transferred to Afghanistan, so our only Korean who could speak for the Koreans in Iraq had no longer been there. Instead, we were depending on other officers. But they should not be spoken on there.

Maciej was a respected man because of his calm. He usually didn't talk much. But from what I remembered by other Polish cadets, Maciej's family is very rich, and they expected Maciej to become one of Eastern Europe's top billionaires. In the end however, Maciej after the Solidarity movement, chose to follow military career.

I and Maciej got some beef because I didn't agree with it, beside, I believed we should be patient due to Iraq's little experience with democracy. But Maciej concluded that the United States could have solved it before, and he even urged to call for radical patrol.

Nonetheless, we shared a similar concern of Iraqi Army. As I stated, both of us were dissatisfied with the Iraqi Armed Forces due to its poor management. Training them proved to be extremely difficult, as most of them, many were noisy and lousy as fuck; but they never tried to set feet on the ground. On the other side, it was us and our allies have to do all.

I would rather hire a bunch of Vietcong fighters rather than a bunch of Iraqi jundis, at least the Vietcong fight like men, unlike those Iraqi ones. Geez, I hate communism, but this is a fact.

Maciej and I, after a length of argument, decided to spend time in a shooting practice. Ramadi was quite safe for a while, and we needed that to do. I have my own specific gun, the air gun covering my hand; he used an anaconda pistol.

Both of us have two dummies to practice. And we spent a time to fire.

Blam!

Blam!

Maciej was a bit surprised of my gun, but I stated to him that, I am a robot cat. I had a bit smiling on their interest of my gun. Maciej went out with a conclusion that I had a freaky weapon looks like none others.

Hah!

"Do you often develop something freaky outside gun?"

"No."

I didn't bother. I didn't! You really thought so?

Maciej was also an interesting case. He is an Orthodox Christian comparing to majority of Poles which are mostly Roman Catholics. This was why his fellows called him "Russkie", because of his religious belief. Perhaps his Russian origin, too.

Maciej, after firing several parts, the dummy was totally hit in the head four times. Much better than me, I hit three times. But I told him not to celebrate so early, because what would happen later need to be decided on the field. He agreed with me, though.

My Australian comrades working in the occupying force claimed that, should a competition of gun occurred in there, my gun would have won. I mean, look on the size, damn you man.

I must say, or, could not say anything.

And I chose silent.

Maciej and I later walked out and visited an Iraqi neighborhood, where we met during the invasion. Two years later, they are our friends. They are a Shi'a family, and having planned to move to Canada because of increasing violence there. His name was Abubakar Ghazel aka. Abu.

Maciej befriended with Abu, and Abu was very, not say, good at English. I was surprised.

"Hello my American friends."

"Not really, Abu."

I wondered when he learnt English. Abu said he used to study in Scotland, so he knew. Guess where? Edinburgh.

Iraq was a former colony of London, therefore British culture was imported to some parts of Iraq. The Iraqis also have more positive view on British rule, rather than we Americans. Mostly because under British rule, there was very rare violence unlike current. They believed the Americans often go with destruction and complete demolition, something that I hate to talk about too.

Why always Britain?

Ah yeah, I worked with British troops, and I recognized their behaviors typically different than Americans. They are very cautious and carefully-planned people, similar to the Germans and Nordics. We Americans are more similar to the French, fun-playing, romanticizing everything. Even the British teas went their way different than we drinking Coca-Cola. Same to Australians.

Maciej mocked: "English story."

Yeah, yeah.

Maciej and Abu enjoyed a close tie. Maciej told Abu that, there are some different, and their conversation between them went well. I joined the conversation in some part. Mostly, because, I was there.

The discussion also focused on the American Civil War. Abu learnt about the war on a three month-exchange to the United States when he was young. In all these things, he admired Stonewall Jackson the most. Maciej was not clear much about the war, but he remembered that Russia did support the Union against Confederacy in order to silence the Polish uprisings.

I knew the Russian Empire back then, but they were an ally of the U.S., not the next Government. I thought the Russian Government was fine, and I hold zero animosity against Russians. However, if we want to choose who to be in power of Russia instead of Putin, well … the Romanovs.

The Poles however hate the Romanovs. Maciej saw that. And while the Poles were no fan of Russia, I know, the Poles simply would not support a royalist Government in Russia again, citing they're okay with current Russian Government, at least not messing around. Really?

"Hey Maciej!"

"Yeah?"

"How do you know Abu?" I asked him.

"I knew him when we invaded Iraq. He was a close friend. So I befriended with him. In a short trip to Ramadi, he told us about a number of Al-Qaeda's collaborators."

Cool!

"Motherfucker why don't you speak earlier? If he is helpful like this?"

"WTF, c'mon! He knows, but he isn't always a savior. He knows the limit and the best thing is we should let him do the job he dreaming for."

"Just this moment, Maciej! We should start talking about possibility of enlisting his son into the CIA."

I even put this to table. I saw the young boy standing with him, and his eyes showed a deep determination. I soon asked Abu:

"Abu, if you move to Canada, can you keep contact with me?"

"Uhhhh, okay."

He was reluctant. Abu, a man who was tall and a devout muslim, seemed to be pretty much, hard to see what would wait him. I even requested him that if his son did well, the boy would be a part of the CIA, in the future.

Maciej didn't imagine a short meeting with Abu would have turned everything. So, we kept walking and, on that day, Maciej and I saw no violence. Hah, at least that day was peaceful.

…

…

…

…

…

Maciej Kerżakow would later go home after a serious wound a year later, and he lost a year to recover. One thing, he lost his right leg because of the explosion leaving his leg amputated. No longer having the right leg, his leg was replaced by a machine one, and he keeps a formal connection to me. He has stated that he will never marry, that was different than his sisters and brothers. He keeps it. His two sisters and two brothers have married and have family, but he doesn't.

Maciej was instrumental on keeping me in contact with Abubakar, and his son whom I knew his name later, Mohamad, when they settled in Vancouver and obtained Canadian passport. I kept persuading the CIA, and even proved hard by taking secret camera spying. Mohamad Ghazel, from a young, 9 years old, who you know?

He is now, an excellent-trained agent of the CIA working undercover in some countries at the Middle East like Yemen and Sudan. During Yemeni Civil War, Mohamad used his Arabic ability to read the move of the Houthis, and instrumental on organizing Shi'a militias that opposing Houthi rule. Now, he is in somewhere in Southeast Asia.

Maciej today is an Orthodox bishop living in a monastery at the border of Poland and Belarus, and he often does charity and praying job, but his friendship with Abubakar remains. A Shi'a and an Orthodox.

…

* * *

#####

Having seen the headless body, and her name is Seiko Shinohara, I have another reason to get pissed off.

"Really?"

I have my gun pointing out. And when I saw the piano wire, I got creepy after realizing the cause of Seiko's death. Not similar to a fun story I mention about Maciej.

"Poza zabawy, zawsze ciemność." ( _Beyond fun play, always have darkness._ )

Quickly, I remember the words of Maciej before he departed away to the mission he got wounded leaving to his leg amputated. So I guess this must be the prank of some avenging spirit.

That's enough. I cut the wire, and … aim the gun. I expected it could be darker …


	5. Dzemaludin Pliskiewicz

The heavy came there.

…

…

…

I could not see why, but if you are imagining about a dead body, it could be a perfect one. Seiko Shinohara, yeah.

I was not gonna using anything to discover except examination, but there was a feeling that everything must be prepared by someone. However, I was, perhaps, different because of my experiences with my friends before, so we were more ready than the victims there.

Extreme megalomania!

I aimed my gun, my face looked with total determination, warning anyone remaining there. Of course, all were totally with dead people for a long time, but they didn't become only remains, the power of someone must be fairly strong there. A ghost indeed.

Suddenly, I heard the sense of demon. So, it could not be …

"Oh shit, I have a company isn't it?"

I looked back, but then, only a door opened, and there was no second one coming there outside me staying with the headless body. It was enough to speak out.

And so, when I started to recognize it must be a vengeance, I went back to the past long ago …

…

…

…

…

…

* * *

#####

February 2006

Baghdad, Iraq

In a minaret, I watched from up there with some fellow SEAL soldiers. Now, being a member of my gang, The Doraemons comprising seven men, I maintained a formal connection when there was nothing to enjoy.

The pray of the Shi'a people in the mosque showing that the people were focusing. I would not say, but the memoir of a Pole there would be more surprise to talk.

…

…

…

 _ **Dżemałudin Płiskiewicz, 32 years old**_

Dżemałudin, a boy from Bohoniki.

He was a Polish soldier but his name showing him a distinct ancestry. He was a Tatar from Poland, in a very less-known Lipka Tatar community, a muslim community that lived in Poland for 600 years. Lipka Tatars are mostly muslims, but their cultural history shows a surprising unique comparing to other muslim people in Europe. They have integrated within Polish society, speaking Polish while maintaining Tatar traditions. They are also very loyal to Poland, and their story is a great example.

He has a younger brother named Adnan, who was deployed to Basra. Unlike the Arab muslims, those Tatar muslims are very skillful and resilient, which I found easier to get in touch than with jundis.

"Dżemałudin Płiskiewicz!"

Dżemałudin's Islamic belief was no shock, he was a Sunni, and the Sunnis are extremely traditionalists. But the Lipka Tatars were different, and it helped us.

He could read and speak Arabic, because he learnt it when he was young. His father, an Imam in Bohoniki, was a Quranic reader. He could not have an easier moment then. Dżemałudin, surprisingly, was a quiet person.

So when I was in the minaret of a Sunni mosque, he practiced Islam in there. I usually didn't get enough humbling time for this.

Hate, like, all had in …

…

After the praying, Dżemałudin returned to the base. He held himself a M17, damn. I never wondered why, but it could not be better than this moment.

I still read about news in Iraq, as well as medias over. One of my reading news is the story of John McCain, who criticized the war in Iraq despite supporting the U.S. intervention. His Scottish blood ran between him showing a degree of respect, which, I did see. He fought in Vietnam, and then supported our army in Iraq. So I read about him.

Go back to Dżemałudin, he spoke to me something.

"What are you looking at me?"

"I am just surprised that, you wear a Polish badge and somehow a faithful believer of Islam …"

"Inshallah, my friend. Being a Polish Tatar is the greatest thing ever happened. I remember that …"

"Dżemałudin, can you explain the history of the Tatars in Poland?"

Well, his Islamic belief, his Polish belief, all gathered around one story back. The Tatars were actually first, not natives to Poland but to Lithuania, and their belief was first, Tengrism. Only the following waves that brought Islam to them and settled in Poland. In the past, Lithuania and Poland fought brief of wars until Poland and Lithuania agreed to cede hostility and establishing a union in 15th century that led to the Commonwealth.

By that time, the Tatars of already weakening Lithuanian Grand Duchy moved to more prosperous Poland. And their movement to Poland followed with the extreme demographic change, and subsequent Polonization of Tatars, turning them from Lithuanian to Polish allegiance instead. This was what the Lithuanians had issues with Poland when nationalism rose at late 19th century.

Because Lipka Tatars had become a minority of Poland, they contributed greatly for the development of multicultural Poland. Since the last unrest at 1670s, Lipka Tatars are loyal to Poland. They fought against their cousins, the Turks, at 1683, and participated in anti-Russian unrests throughout 19th century. Some of the world's most influential muslim scholars of 20th century came from Poland, like Jakub Szynkiewicz, who supported a wide-vast secularization of Islam via. education and economic improvement until the coup led by Nasser.

The Lithuanians, during the turbulent 1920 war against Poland, accused Poland for Polonizing the Tatars that should be sworn as Lithuanian natives. Dżemałudin himself explained this weird part, and himself also dismissed the Lithuanians over it.

I am not familiar with Polish history, outside the book _God's Playground_ of Norman Davies. Davies' knowledge of Polish history proved to be useful, and I understood that. Feeling the tragedy of Polish people, I must be in love with them, although myself can be seen as more … Russified in some part, since I don't know Polish.

Dżemałudin after explaining quickly went to duty. He used a number of good link, and his Islamic faith helped him to identify a number of Al-Qaeda's fighters.

I heard that Dżemałudin's good tie with several Sunni muslim neighborhood was something he stated as a gift. He used influent Arabic to speak with them and therefore, he impressed many people.

Judging he is a Polish soldier with Islamic belief, his boss must be proud of him.

…

…

…

Today, we tried to clean out the bombs and messes there after a short fighting. Of course, it was a small-scale clash between an Al-Qaeda member captured by us, and the GROM. So, thanks!

Dżemałudin was helpful for us, indeed. By capturing this Al-Qaeda fighter, we soon knew that, they might change their tactics to survive. But it remained uncertain what should have been gone.

Of course, the war was terrible. Having a muslim friend like him, however, was great. It was a single story, though …

…

…

…

…

…

It was him who later influenced me to study about Islam, and thanked for Dżemałudin Płiskiewicz, I learnt to become a muslim and started to practice Islam. I followed Islam in 2009, and I stayed like this for five years until I murdered an Imam that sought me to found a dangerous motivation, which perhaps, more dangerous than ISIS. Subsequently, I decided to go to Eastern Orthodoxy and changed for the second times. Now, I choose to be an Orthodox Christian, but remain with Presbyterian and Catholic connection.

Dżemałudin Płiskiewicz? Yes, after he returned from Iraq, he became an Imam and taught about the history of Tatars, and collaborating with other Islamic communities. He traveled to Thailand and condemned violence between Buddhists and Muslims there. Meanwhile, he also criticizes a lot of Islamic teachings that he thought to be ridiculous and unrealistic, such as Wahhabism. He did go to Bosnia and Albania and volunteer to oppose the opening of any Wahhabi mosques in these countries. His stance against current Iranian regime made him an enemy among those mollahs who saw him as a pawn of Islam.

…

…

…

* * *

#####

And now, after I spoke the past, I quietly turned my head back to see the headless body of Seiko Shinohara.

"There is a bit religious smell …"

I wasn't hesitate to wait. I decided to look on the way Seiko died, to walk up and discover. I went upstair, to check out … Yuck, it was fucking …

…

…

…

So like Iraq War …


	6. Paul Mantrowski

Having seen the death of Seiko Shinohara, I started to hear about a lot of deadly smiles. So turning out, it was real threat, and I must solve it before the dead could take more lives of others by trapping them there.

So, do you know why I came there?

Well … when I was playing soccer in the backyard of a stadium, I began to hear about a friend talking to me that there was something abnormal behind a school backyard. They invited me a group of girls from Kisaragi Academy asking me for help.

At first, I was extremely surprised that how could they understand I was able to resolve, until it was revealed to be … well, damn. No need to say. So I had to approach them and to go there.

It was a long story.

…

…

But, again, I was there. In this freaky place that completely disconnected with the modern world called Heavenly Host, I imagined there must have a blood bath.

Suddenly, talking about soccer earlier, my face turned dark. I could not speak much, but, let's head back shall we?

…

* * *

#####

June 2006

Basra, Iraq

Soccer … and FIFA World Cup.

In global English, it is known as football, but more importantly, it is _association football_ , not American football that we usually play. But American and Canadian English stated it is "soccer". Well, soccer was traditionally dated back to England in the middle of 19th century before they used "football" to describe the sport they play.

Play soccer is actually plain simple: your team must have 11 players, one must be goalkeeper. You can use anything but hands to get the ball except for throwing on. If you play hand on your team's penalty area, your opponent will be awarded a penalty kick. There are corner kicks on case you broke the ball to the vertical boundary of your team. If you stand below the opponent's defenders when the ball comes to you, it will be counted as offside. Scoring more goals, you will win.

Yet, I love soccer. Outside baseball, I love soccer, again. This set me different from mainstream Americans. Americans, in general, were not aware with this sport because it lacked a modern history. Despite the United States, so far, was the only team from outside South America and Europe to win a bronze medal in the FIFA World Cup, at 1930, the inaugural edition, Americans didn't have interest and after 1950, we had to wait for 40 years before returning again.

This achievement was totally been ignored, subsequently. And the way we managed the Major League Soccer, our first ever professional soccer competition for clubs in the U.S., was and still questionable. I criticized the way they refused to use promotion and relegation system, to an extent I say " _fuck your mother!_ " to express my anger.

We were gonna play the 2006 FIFA World Cup held in Germany. And our main big four that played a role shaping Iraq: the United States, Poland, England and Australia, also had their teams in this tournament. For the Aussies, they expected more from it because it had been so long since 1974 that they returned to the game again. 1974 was held in German soil, so it was Australia's going back home. England and Poland have longer soccer traditions, so no surprise that they decorated their bases with many things differently.

Thing is, the United States of America, or, USMNT, gained a lot of expectation. Because of our performance four years ago was extremely incredible. For a country that soccer is just establishing its popularity in a traditionally baseball and basketball nation, four years ago in Korea and Japan, where I also traveled and watched, was a feat. I remembered 1930; then 1950 when we beat England 1-0; 1994, when we hosted the World Cup successfully; but nothing was so great like 2002.

2002 World Cup came a year after the country suffered the tragic September 11th, which caused whole nation in ravage and we decided to launch the attack against Taliban in Afghanistan, opening our war against terrors. Because of a lot of muslims celebrate the September 11th attack, now they demand us to pay for damages and reparation. Sorry? You mobster mohammedans supported September 11th, we bombed you, okay? You deserved it.

Of course, not all muslims support this fact. As I said in previous chapter, Dżemałudin Płiskiewicz, a Polish Tatar, condemned the attack strongly and had confirmed his stance of bombing any kind of Islamic extremism. The same goes to Albanians and Bosniaks, whom I felt respect with. Moroccans, too, they are our oldest muslim ally; as well as Iranians (well, not Iranian regime of course) and Turks (many Turks still identify themselves with Tengrism despite being a muslim country). But Płiskiewicz also warned us to remember, since most muslims in the world are totally stick with Quranic teachings, they have become victims of many falsified taught and easily used as targets. Now I realize, the Poles were not wrong at all.

The U.S. got group with Czech Republic, a furious team two years ago making storm in Europe before shocking everyone by losing to eventual European King, Greece, who was weaker than them. The Czechs also stood higher than us. And then Italy as well as new guy named Ghana. Poland got grouped with host Germany, as well as two Spanish-speaking countries, Costa Rica and Ecuador. Poland was expected to pass because they had been in an easier group.

Damn it.

And when I went to the Polish camp in Basra, I met a rookie there.

"Hey!"

I got hit as he was running. For me, he looked like an annoying kid. I requested him to be careful before running on other people. He reluctantly apologized before going again to receive reports. After that, I started to call him back.

What I had impression was, this boy must be a hard-working kid. I wondered it could have changed my view. And so, I met him.

 _ **Paul Mantrowski, 20 years old**_

I met him when I saw him running away to receive reports. After that, I requested him to meet me outside. And, he did.

"What are you doing, Mr. Paul?"

"I receive new from the Captain …"

"That's okay. Can you tell me your name?"

"Paulas Mantrauskas, reporter of the Polish Armed Forces and GROM, report."

"Paulas? Never heard any Poles naming 'Paulas'."

"Sorry Sir … my family is Lithuanian … my Polish name is Paul Mantrowski …"

"Ahh, I see."

Lithuanians and Greeks have a funny naming style. Both ends with "-s". Weird.

"Can you shoot a gun?" I asked him again.

"Me?" Paul wondered.

Perhaps he was not prepared. So I requested him to tell about his family. And yes, he did.

Mantrowski himself was actually not a Pole, but actually having Lithuanian by origin. His Lithuanian name is Paulas Mantrauskas, and since he is of Lithuanian origin, he has a difficult adapting Polish himself. This explained why he reported to me his Lithuanian name.

Sometimes I didn't get enough, but if we read history, Poland and Lithuania were once one country, but not without fighting some wars. Their relationship was privileged but also tense sometimes, as in the past, Poland and Lithuania fought war over Vilnius 1920. Paul's grandfather was a Lithuanian soldier fighting in 1920 war against Poland, and he deeply hated Poland and even later supported both Nazi and Soviet persecution of Polish people, eventually was killed in the Warsaw Uprising 1944 as a Nazi officer, as Hitler regarded Lithuania with a bond. His father also developed an anti-Polish sentiment, but in Paul's generation, it didn't develop anymore.

The Mantrauskas family moved to Poland only at late 1980s, when economic condition in USSR worsened. Long time under oppression of the Russians there let them move to Poland with nothing. This explained why they had their problem to adapt with Polish society. When they changed family name to Mantrowski to fit the host, USSR started to disintegrate and collapsed at 1989, the year Poland freed from communism. Paul was three years old.

But sometimes, his family past continued to haunt him. In 2000, he engaged in a school violence in Lubin after a classmate stated him as son of Nazi. His isolation and deep grievances left him with bad mark, and this was the reason he had to join the military.

Of course, despite being raised in Poland, he wasn't too influent in Polish; but he spoke perfect Lithuanian. Wow, grandson of a Lithuanian soldier, later joined Polish Army.

I have a Russian friend and he is also aware with the cause of Baltic family moving abroad due to oppression by communist USSR, so he knew what happened. I texted to him back, and he agreed with it. As we understand Russian, we can make easy to contact.

Then, I asked Paul again.

"Do you want to enjoy FIFA World Cup?"

"Yes, I will cheer for Poland because I was raised and naturalized there."

"Will you? I am not sure …"

"I know I used to be under significant trauma because of being bullied by my classmates, but … I belong to there. I maybe from Lithuania, but I grew in Poland."

"I am glad. But please remember, you have to be tough and strong, Paul. Do you have girlfriend?"

"I have. Yukiko, a girl I met during my visit to Japan, is my girlfriend."

"Haha! I used to study in Japan. It was surprising to see you have such a girl. Where is she from?"

"She is from Nagano, but her family is from Kyoto."

"Her age?"

"20. Like me."

"I wish you the best of luck, Paul. Please keep that, you are a proud person. Your grandfather is a brave man, he might have fought on the opposite, but he is still your hero because you were born by his bless. Please don't forget him."

"But … would it make hard to integrate within Poland?"

"Nah!" I confirmed: "The Poles are warm and open-minded people. You will be fine, trust me."

"Okay. I'll."

"But also you need to learn shooting or become a medic, okay?"

"Yes, Sir."

He walked away when I looked back. I saw he was eager to decorate the base. The Polish room was filled with flags, cards and even banners cheering Polish national team in the World Cup, only Polish soldiers made, with helps from the others like Australian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Armenian and Korean groups.

…

 _Nightfall_

Because Iraq is an hour earlier than Germany, GMT+3 than GMT+2, when Poland played against Ecuador at 21:00 in Germany, in Iraq it was 22:00.

Mantrowski did very well. He took everything, he cleant, he washed, and he later decorated the whole room. Thanked for his participation, everything could be ready. Just take it that Germany defeated Costa Rica 4-2, Poland must beat Ecuador.

And so be it. I heard Paul stood together with other Polish soldiers, and they touched into their chest, and sang …

…

…

…

 _The March of Dąbrowski_

"Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła,  
Kiedy my żyjemy.  
Co nam obca przemoc wzięła,  
Szablą odbierzemy.

Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski,  
Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski.  
Za twoim przewodem  
Złączym się z narodem.

Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski,  
Z ziemi włoskiej do Polski.  
Za twoim przewodem  
Złączym się z narodem."

( _Poland has not yet perished,  
_ _So long as we still live.  
_ _What the foreign force has taken from us,  
_ _We shall with sabre retrieve._

 _March, march, Dąbrowski,  
_ _From the Italian land to Poland.  
_ _Under your command  
_ _We shall rejoin the nation._

 _March, march, Dąbrowski,  
_ _From the Italian land to Poland.  
_ _Under your command  
_ _We shall rejoin the nation._ )

Suddenly, I remembered that, the Polish anthem was one of the best military marches of history … and I just look on them.

The Poles are a very strange, yet proud people. Having studied mostly in Japan and used to get in touch with the Russians more, the Poles gave me an extremely different feeling. Even for a Lithuanian Pole like Paul, he sang it with pride.

I feel they have power and determination to do.

God bless them.

…

…

…

…

What happened in the World Cup later, however, was an extreme disappointment for Poland and the U.S., both went out from group stage. For Paul however, this was the first time he truly felt the warm and might of Polish nation.

It was then he became more trained, more hardened, and from just a cleaning boy, he soon took duty as an escort for the Poles in Iraq. Paul Mantrowski had grown much.

In 2007, in a rare moment he was allowed to go relaxing for a month, he proposed to Yukiko Maki, his girlfriend, in Goyang (South Korea), and because of his hardworking and resilient, he finally got an accept from Yukiko. His wedding was attended by several members of the Polish Armed Forces in Iraq, and me. It is rare to see Poles marry foreigners, which was because I lack of information, rather than their reasons. They did it first in a Shinto temple in Kyoto, before making wedding in Kraków, the home of Pope John Paul II.

Yukiko kept her traditional kimono wearing, while Paul wore a strong, and tough Polish army uniform. I studied in Japan before, so I knew Japanese well.

Paul later became a very experienced and strong soldier, and doing many successful protections for high-ranking Iraqi officials as well as killing a number of insurgents. But …

… in 2008, the last days of Polish Army stationing in Iraq, he was killed in an ambush. At that day, he sheltered three Marines and made himself a decoy, helping us to delay and eventually crushed out terrorists in Tikrit, one of the rising hotspot of violence. I only heard Paul's death when I saw a group of soldiers standing there. For me, it was too much.

Upon hearing his death, Colonel Józef Nikowski honored him for his duty. His death came after Yukiko gave birth a son for him three weeks, and Yukiko was very devastated with her husband's death.

For madam Maki, I felt my guilty for not participating in that mission. I am proud of Paul, our Lithuanian warrior, for his duty. Eventually, Lithuanian kids in Poland often wanted to learn from the bravery of him, the adopted son of Poland.

Today, for Yukiko Mantrowska, her son now is just a 10 years old boy. She named him Witold after Witold Urbanowicz, the Polish warrior in WWII, and she often brought her son to visit Paul's grave, implying that in the future, Witold will be as great as his dad.

Me?

I just want to say, _zawsze_.

…

…

…

* * *

#####

But mentioning beautiful stories didn't change the fact, I am in Heavenly Host, and I had seen two headless women, as well as numerous bodies. It was frightening.

I must make a small claim: yuck! Everything there was a shitty place up, but we had to accept because it was what we were heading for. Yui Shishido, Seiko Shinohara. Now?

We will never know what the fuss is waiting for.

Again, I didn't have too many respect for what's gone, I considered it a method of brutality that so unacceptable for normal civilians. So abusive and cruel. Why?

I didn't get it.

…

…

…

But I quickly listened a laugh. Perhaps it was no joke. It was serious and I must be fast, to see who was behind that.


	7. Jakub Bogaloszewski

The deadly smile and the restless avenging spirit … I could smell that.

I used to discover the gate to hell and as I have special abilities to handle, I was able to disable them and finally rescued my friends. When I got with it again, I had no reason to be afraid of.

My sword continued to be kept on my belt while I had an air gun ready to take down the enemy, I would never wonder much.

What I didn't get enough was why? Why could a spirit never stop trying to taking vengeance on and on and on? I didn't understand. And when I began to retake the past serious, I also remembered the times out of there, I looked to it …

…

When I checked another body, I found the new body. As usual, checking ID and, yes!

"Ran Kobayashi."

Irony you're, dear. If there were not a story of deadly Heavenly Host, I might have taken board and fly to Tunisia, enjoying the beach of Sfax playing soccer. I knew Arabic, right?

But then, Ran Kobayashi, a brief corpse. Then, I walked to another room, perhaps medical one, and I, once again, discovered another dead body.

And, this time, her fate was so similar to Yui and Seiko: beheaded.

"Fuck … anyone else got their heads out from bodies?"

Her name was also checked: Miyu Shinohara. Wow, so similar to Seiko, but look on her costumes, it was not similar much. There was a sense that no connection between two girls either. Oh, another connection: they were now both headless.

I sat down, again. I got tired a lot because I could not speak anymore. I went an extreme disappointment and anger, and I didn't want to wait anymore. Hell, who was there, show up!

When I sat there, I quickly returned to my memoir, again …

…

…

…

…

…

* * *

#####

October 2006

Baghdad, Iraq

For some reasons, I was permitted to meet Saddam Hussein, and when I received a profile about planned execution of the tyrant, I felt myself should spend the rest of my year there to meet Saddam before the execution. So I met.

"ما الذي يبحث عنه الأمريكيون عني؟" ( _What are you Americans looking from me?_ )

"صدام حسين ، آتي إلى هنا بسلام. لست متأكداً مما إذا كان يجب أن نتحدث أم لا ، لكن صدقوني ، عندما كنت رئيساً للعراق ، يجب أن تكون لديك تجربة رائعة ، أليس كذلك؟" ( _Saddam Hussein, I come here with peace. I am not sure if we should speak out or not, but believe me, when you were President of Iraq, you must have an awesome experience, don't you?_ )

"More than just awesome, my friend."

Saddam's answer showing that he was extremely arrogant and over proud of himself. But I was not surprised if this answer came from a tyrant. So I just told him that, in December, he should change his clothes, because he would be free. His response, however, proved that he knew the fate was coming to him.

My short meeting only took for 7 minutes. After that, I left.

…

Cars and trucks were exist there, but there were a lot of our troops in the streets. I sensed the city had become increasing tense. Number of sectarian violence had increased in just few months. Meanwhile, the Italians had started to depart away, so we had to rely on the Romanians to patrol Baghdad. Some of our Polish GROM troops were also entrusted. Myself this time, walked with the GROM, and met with the Captain of the patrol group.

 _ **Jakub Bogałoszewski, 49 years old**_

A very experienced captain, Jakub was known to be extremely brutal and right-handed. He joined the Polish Armed Forces at 1988 (back then named as People's Army), and he remained since.

Jakub was not a kind of person you should mess with, but when he became humorous, he was also extremely funny and easy-going. I knew him when the Poles patrolled Baghdad following the fall of Saddam, so I would not be surprised at all.

"Jakub, what the hell you are doing?"

"Hah! You just came back, don't you?"

"You are 49. I am a robot cat, so I have no age."

"You are cool. Maybe you are the robot version of Wolverine. Say, who else create you guys successfully? I am surprised."

"This is a long story. Better talk next time."

"So, do you know why we began to check more cars than usual?"

I walked with the Poles in Baghdad and when I marked there to check out, I saw several cars holding suspicious things. The only reason I started to check, must be …

"Mohammed Farah-Abdi, the Yemeni militant of Somali origin. Second hand of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and a member of Al-Shabaab in Somalia."

Farah-Abdi was known to be a mad scientist and he often manufactured, even ran for himself, a factory to make bombs and detonations. Some of them worked for Al-Qaeda and his brothers had tie with them.

Because of his involvement on the failed attack on the Ukrainian embassy in Paris as for the result of Ukraine's involvement in Iraq War, he was listed as a terrorist that must be killed. The Ukrainians wanted him to be extradited to Kiev, so that they could finally execute this bastard.

Back then, he committed attacks on Western interests, a lot. But never thought he would do it to Ukraine. However, I was aware with the fact that he called for a jihad wave in Crimea, then-part of Ukraine, summoning Tatars and muslims to revolt against … the Orthodox infidels. This was when Europe got alarmed, after what they did to Madrid and Beslan in 2004.

I could have seen that coming. Mohammed Farah-Abdi must have been to Baghdad to prepare for a large attack. So I would take my hand up, and, got it!

It's time …

…

…

…

I tried to seek any cars, as well as looking across the street when there were a lot of people walking around. However I quietly recognized a big difference in Baghdad: Sunni in one side and Shi'a in one side. The Sunni followers lived separately from the Shi'a and open discrimination could be heard.

The Sunnis of Iraq, except the Kurds who didn't feel bond with the Arabs, extremely hated the Shi'a. In the past, various Sunnis took power, like the Hashemites, and later the Ba'ath. Ba'ath Iraq intended to make an Arab unity, but later married with Islamic and Sunni extremism, turning it into sectarian issues. Me and Jakub were aware with it.

But why not the Kurds? Well, the Kurds are Sunni majority, but their adherence to Kurdish nationalism, desire to form their own country and strongly anti-Arab pro-Israeli, alienated them from pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism. Kurds are also secular people as well. Saddam did once commit genocide against Kurds by gassing them, leaving to them extremely hated Saddam. It was the Peshmerga who captured Saddam, and the Kurdistan region in Iraq, was one of the most stable place in Iraq, where contractors from many countries, including Israel, visiting there.

But again, we were in Baghdad, which is nowhere near to Kurdistan.

"أسرع أسرع! نحن لا ننتظرك." ( _Faster, faster! We are not waiting for you._ )

We were still hunting for Mohammed Farah-Abdi when we patrolled there. And everything was fine until Jakub and I saw someone running there. He carried something in the bag and tried to cover it.

Our senses both believed it could be a terrorist plot. As increasing sectarian violence in Baghdad had emerged, we had to be fast. We ought to have taken it seriously.

"Let's go, Jakub."

We ran to the building and quietly opened the door, as I and Jakub ran up with a number of GROM soldiers. We then moved quietly to not getting trapped. Then, I slowly heard about it …

"Farah-Abdi! Inshallah!"

What?

Mohammed Farah-Abdi, the most hunted person, had been to the city? I didn't understand a bit, until I discovered out this was …

Those bastards had digged a tunnel long before we invaded Iraq, in order to prevent themselves from being discovered. I told to Jakub and both of us understood that, they were planning to make several suicide attacks. Some of those insurgents I saw from the window were also from Chechnya and Dagestan, both are Republics under Russian administration and has long histories of violence. Though, the Russians are extremely brutal, following Beslan 2004, the Russians had executed and killed a lot of Chechens. This brutal treatment of Russian troops in Chechnya earned them the name "butcher of Chechnya"; but for anti-muslim groups in Europe, Russia is seen as a savior.

Again, I tried to see how many insurgents, but perhaps 10 to 12, including Farah-Abdi. After that, we decided to interrupt them. I and Jakub counted on.

"3, 2, 1!"

I shot my air gun into the door, cracked down the door at the expense of those insurgents. They were startled and tried to arm themselves, but I and Jakub's men were faster in one step. We shot them immediately and took down two of them. Then we immediately entered in and shot three others. Those remaining fired back. Gun fires came.

"تموت ، أيها الأوغاد الكافرون!" ( _Die, you infidel bastards!_ )

Mohammed Farah-Abdi was very scared that he had to take his design and told them to blast the place. I knew what was Farah-Abdi planning, so I shot to his foot.

Abdi was hit and he fell. Then, he tried to move, as his men started to take cover. But our experience proved to be better and we beat all of these insurgents in few seconds later. The last two was down.

The number was 11. Abdi was one of them. We lost zero. So great to feel how many we had killed.

…

…

…

After then, we looked on Mohammed Farah-Abdi, our Somali boy captured by Polish GROM. To be frank, capturing him was the best thing we had right now. And not surprised, at all cost.

Those Chechens, I would need to text about possibility of it. The United States was quite secretly backing Russia against Chechens, as for the rapid increase of Islamic extremism, and no surprise that NATO also thought the same, though likely to woo Georgia by supporting Russia against Chechens to calm Russia's fear over NATO expansion.

Shit!

When we decided to take Farah-Abdi, suddenly, an explosion in somewhere occurred.

"BOOM!"

Really?

We took out Farah-Abdi while watching from the window about the explosion. Turning out, someone had carried an attack there, and both had something to do with it.

I questioned Abdi how many tunnels like that, and Abdi claimed more than just one. I didn't know why, but if more than just one, then it could be serious. We looked again and for some reasons, I must be aware with it.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

I immediately escorted Abdi, together with our GROM allies under Jakub's command. Jakub was also serious, when he eliminated all obstacles across the city. People had begun to gather to see the explosion, as the explosion just distanced from the place we captured Farah-Abdi three streets.

None of us denied about the military gathering around as well. They were examining the level of the attack, they concluded.

The attack headed into a market near our patrol post. It exploded and killed 30 people, and injured 44 people. The suicide attack proved to be deadly, as it injured some of our patrol soldiers.

Those jundis had failed to understand it. I must have extreme regret for trying to aid them, a failed army, of course.

No one like this story, but it was a must.

…

…

…

After that, I let Jakub to escort Farah-Abdi. The Poles did very well, again. I loved it. Thank you Poland.

I didn't imagine the war anything more tragic, but at least Iraq was not Vietnam in an extent. Outside hearing about the story of Viet Ram (Vietnam + Ramadi, lol), Iraq at least didn't end up like Vietnam, when we could contain it.

Of course, the Poles thought less or more of Vietnam is still a question. In the past, Poland and Vietnam were both communists, so no surprise that we had a level of knowledge there.

The Poles, as I had spoken for those who knew, had a deep sympathy to the Vietnamese people. If we had used times, you would realize they are similar in their historical pain. Both were used to be repeatedly invaded and invaded by imperial forces, such as Russia, China, the Mongols, and an extent, the Turks, the Germans, the Swedes and the Austrians for Poland; and the Khmers, the Thais, the Japanese and the French for Vietnam.

But what truly made those who knew Vietnamese history in Poland upset, is Vietnam has not escaped from communist regime. Poland, meanwhile, has revolted and overthrown those commies in 1989.

Being an American myself, in the U.S., we have an official day called the Pulaski Day, celebrated since 1986 by Polish American community. It quickly reminded me that, the Poles and Vietnamese are also very influential with their impressive wars and revolutions. I remembered when the Poles repulsed the Turks at Vienna 1683, the Balkan nations made a revolution against the Turks and the Habsburg finally re-captured much of their lost territory. The Polish anthem inspired Europeans to wage a revolt of 1848. When Polish partisans fought the WWII against Germans and Soviets, they got supported by entire of world's partisans together and even India's Gandhi showed solidarity with Poland. The Poles revolted against communist rule in 1980s inspired whole parts of Europe and the world to fight back communist authoritarianism and leaving North Korea as the only communist bastion in de facto.

But the Vietnamese? Well, I would have no idea if I didn't go with Jakub …

"Jakub Bogałoszewski, what the hell man?"

He read a book called _Historia w Wietnamu_ , privately published in Poland during 1990s. I wondered …

"Wait, you are reading …"

"My friend, my father used to be in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. His impression on them led him to collect a number of memory over the Vietnamese and it was him to requested to publish the book."

"Why you try to read about this communist state, seriously?"

At that time, I didn't have my attention.

"Blame it or not, it is still there. And I won't hate a country just because of a terrible Government, either."

"Jakub, what are your impressions of Vietnam anyway?"

"They are also great people."

He told that the Vietnamese are extremely amazing people, and his father wasn't wrong. I didn't understand enough, but when I listened to him, I soon understood it was more complicated than you thought.

He told me that the Vietnamese are tough people, because they fought China for thousand years. They were also tough warriors by repelling the Khmer and Cham invasions, and repeated invasions from China as well as Thailand; but the greatest was against the Mongols. If we read history, the Mongols are cousins of the Turks who would invade Europe at 1400s and being repelled by the mighty Poles at 1683. Those who invaded Vietnam in 1200s, formed mostly by the Turks.

In modern era, Vietnamese proved to be great fighters when they repelled Japan and France, contributed to the revolt against imperial rules in Asia and Africa.

But the funniest part is … lol, the Turks had been kicked ass twice!

The tragedy of Vietnam was communism. The communist retards had taken over the country, and me, together with Jakub, agreed with it. As an American, I supported our view. But Jakub spoke something that would haunt me …

"However, judging out the nature of Asian continent is an extremely complex, when many countries fell under tyranny and authoritarianism too long, I feel that the continent is not ready to move toward democracy like Europe, or other parts of the world."

"What?"

"You know, Asia is not Europe or the Americas. Nor even similar to Oceania. This continent has a long history of being under authoritarianism, and China, one the world's ancient civilizations, is the birth place of authoritarian rule. Because of it, China always saw themselves the need of waging war to impose their rule and oppress dissidents."

"China? Birth place of authoritarianism?"

"Yes. Unlike India, Iran and ancient Europe/Rome/Greek, Chinese civilization didn't have idea of democracy but full authoritarian rule. People in there to fend themselves against Chinese imperialism had no choice but to become tough. So they would accept any kind of rules, if this defends their countries. I feel Vietnam fell to communist tyranny is sad, because the reds murdered many people; but an aspect also tells me, this maybe the temporary way to fight against Chinese imperialism, as China later invaded this country at 1979."

"You mean like …"

So I quietly realized what he told me. Vietnam is an Asian country, and the continent has a long history of totalitarian rules rather than democracy. This might explain why movement for democratic changes in Asia so weak comparing to Europe or the Americas. He also explained that, some democratic countries in Asia are actually not democratic like North Korea, like Thailand which the military held behind "elections", or going to the Arab Gulf nations which are extremely authoritarian and oppressive. Not just say Pakistan, Cambodia, Malaysia are actually not democracy, etc. This left Taiwan, Japan, Mongolia, South Korea, Indonesia and India as few democratic bastions.

However, all behind this came from China. The Chinese would invade any countries that do not follow their system of obeying China. They did it to Korea before, cutting Korea to two. They did to Vietnam. They did to India. They tried with Taiwan. They supplied Taliban in Afghanistan. They helped Iranian regime with nuclear weapons. I will never know why, but it seemed like, Vietnamese people have no choice but to accept communist tyranny in their head, or else China will make it worse.

That's what Jakub said.

…

…

Quick enough, Jakub finally stated:

"You may see it coming. I am sure China's imperial habit has never stopped. It is just, when and why. They are also far smarter than Russia."

Well, we talked about it in a base after the explosion. When we imprisoned Farah-Abdi, I spent time talking with Jakub and soon I realized, it was real.

As the later, Jakub said:

"I'll travel to Southeast Asia when my military career over. I am looking to become a human right activist and an analyst."

"Such amazing dream, but you're 49 now. You're not young anymore."

"Not young anymore doesn't make me old."

"Well … wish you the best. But … say, you will also visit Vietnam, right? I am taking a group of former U.S. veterans to the country."

"Yes."

"Do you think this country will become a democracy soon?"

"I do. And I believe in the bless of God, the Vietnamese shall free themselves from communist rule. Not 10 years, then 20 years, then 30 years, and more. But beyond 100 years, you will not see the communists in Vietnam anymore."

I and him looked on, and we saw a determination between us that there would be no more communist regimes in the world, like how the Poles overthrew the commies at 1989.

…

…

…

…

…

Jakub Bogałoszewski retired in 2009, and he had become a teacher in the Jagiellonian University. He did travel and collect a memoir of Asia's historical struggle between democracy and authoritarianism. Following China's ambitions to take over South China and East China Seas, he put a lot of criticisms against China. When One Belt, One Road came to mind, he believed this could have been China's plan to promote their influence and to increasing their controls on other part of the world, and he was not hesitate to claim OBOR as a new Chinese project of neo-colonialism.

Thus, his stance was marked with criticisms by Chinese in their medias.

He also campaigns for freedom of speeches in other Asian nations, urging South Korea, Taiwan and Japan to take more aggressive stance against human rights violation in Vietnam, Laos, Pakistan, Burma, etc.

Wow, I had few words, but I thought he could be …

…

…

…

* * *

#####

But seeing two dead bodies also marked me with a deep insult.

I soon wondered who could have been there anyway. I got mad with this.

"Who could have been so mad like today?"

I would never forgive those who did it. I must have sensed this way, which, I must take my head serious.

Little Ran and Miyu, might be?

…

…

…

"Please … if you know Sachiko …"

I quickly stood up when I heard someone appeared to us. The spirit of someone appeared behind me, I smelt it.

…

…

"Who're you, anyway?"

I put my gun up and looked into … exactly what I expected, how amusing.

"Lmao!"

I saw you now. A spirit of the already headless Miyu came back, lol. What did she want?

"I came because …"

"You were dead? Yeah, I know."

She was surprised that I didn't get scared to see her spirit. But if I had to explain, it would be a waste of time. I just asked a question.

"あなたがこれのようなことを全部やり遂げたのは何だったの？" ( _What the fuck you let everything like this came to you?_ )

She blushed … and then she explained to me. After a while, I soon understood, it was something … I must bear it.


	8. Tomasz Derna

I walked out, wondering what did a dead spirit look from me. Yeah yeah, Miyu Shinohara, how cute this name. Lol.

"I am glad you came."

Of course, I could not get more. What she just said to me earlier, perhaps, I should keep it until the direct time until I finally encountered the culprit.

After that, Miyu just cried before she vanished again. My experience with her ghost would be something I could not forget, and I must not forget that frightening, yet traumatic moment.

…

I listened to Khaled's _Didi_ , a popular song during 1990s in Europe and the Americas, Middle East and South Asia as well as Africa. I just walked with total confidence that I could get over it, and I believed so. I used to be played in 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. That Algerian guy is extremely powerful and charismatic, for me, via. his music.

When I walked away after meeting the spirit of Miyu alongside the headless body of her and the corpse of Ran, Khaled's Didi returned me to Iraq, once more …

…

…

* * *

#####

December 2006

Baghdad, Iraq

This was the moment when people gonna take place over the execution of Saddam Hussein. As for the result, security had been increased rapidly and troops of many countries, mainly Americans, had been deployed.

In my base, I played Didi, the song of Khaled, and I even sang it too.

"ادي ادي، ادي ادي، ادي ادي، ادي ادي الزين ادي واه." ( _Take take, take take the beautiful girl away._ )

Of course, his Arabic is difficult, because it has a lot of French loanwords, alongside Italian and Turkish ones. The long history under French domination left Algeria a long French trait, which I could sense it.

Algeria was an ally of the United States, but unlike Morocco, Algeria had very little for us to know. That was because Algeria remained under an authoritarian rule, but its importance could not be judged out and Algerian military has been fighting against Islamic extremists since 1990s, the Algerian Civil War. The civil war was, merely, not a total war, but it was a bloody insurgency that killed 250.000 people. However, this was a tragic lesson for us.

Unfortunately, Iraq isn't Algeria. Worse, from my friends who worked in the Maghreb countries, who is of Algerian origin, he claimed the Iraqi military was extremely corrupt and poorly trained.

He was right. I had trained with Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian soldiers, and they are the most elite troops in the Arab World. Technically, I understood why Algeria could squeeze the civil war from 1992 to 1996 (de facto ended Algerian Civil War, from 1996 to 2002 was an era of insurgency).

As the time we were preparing to execute Saddam Hussein, I must have read my favorite new written by the New York Post, " _The Butcher of Sagdad_ ". Lol. The Sun ever ran into the main magazine with a picture of Saddam changing clothes, stated " _The Tyrant's in His Pant_ ", hahahahahahahaha.

Okay, when we were there, I met another rookie. This time was a daredevil. Well, not precisely but he was …

 _ **Tomasz Derna, 19 years old**_

Or spelt as "Thomas", he is actually not a Polish soldier, but rather, a Polish American soldier, since he served as a soldier of the United States Armed Forces. We called him "Tommy", for sure, as most Americans have poor knowledge of speaking Polish name.

"Tom!"

"Hell what are you doing?"

"I know, right? Tommy, you better focus on the execution of Saddam. How many insurgents have you killed ya?"

"I killed 20."

"HUH? What the fuck …"

I didn't believe his words at the beginning, until I realized he was a renown daredevil. In his youth, he used to manage many astonishing run and even incredible kickboxing that could not be seen by outsiders. But that was too small, because he had done even more.

He even jumped through trucks, too. Damn this boy.

This bastard must be tough. Had we not taken it seriously, he would have become a free-lance daredevil. He joined the army just a year ago at West Coast, but his popularity gave him a free ticket to Iraq.

He was a native New Mexican, and so he had a great deal of it.

Tom was about to build something there. Damn this boy, he was so bastard!

"Tommy, get back to work!"

I got angry because he was looking to make a bomb and then used to it to make a false suicide attack, which he believed to make Al-Qaeda suffered unwanted attacks. He continued to claim, but I was not happy, as he was insane!

Keep in mind that he often tried to make or create something weird, I would never approve it at all, unless necessary.

However, he never stopped trying with his insane experiment. When he could not have to do some of his "stunning" moves, he would go to labs and made something explosive. This boy must be controlled damn it!

I hated to be with him. To be serious, when entire of the security situation in Iraq had been tightened by years following the rise of sectarian attacks, with the Iraqi jundis in front to guard, our force had to prepare for the execution of Saddam Hussein. People realized that it must be a hard time.

The extreme heat that we saw in Baghdad was what we knew. Of course, we just enjoyed Thanksgiving, and we were going to have Christmas. But since Saddam execution would follow Christmas, we had relatively short time to have fun. It was 24th December, ya.

Yeah. Mine and others wished that we were celebrating Christmas at home, not being in a desert city. And Baghdad was hot, while our people at home were playing snowball.

Then, after we finally prepared enough for Saddam, we went back. But I also took my attention to Thomas. When I went to laboratory room, I was so surprised a small explosion occurred. He just destroyed our room with his chemical tests.

"DERNA!"

He, again, ruined our lab …

"THOMAS! What the fuck are you doing?"

"What?"

As for the result when other Generals discovered out, he was punished by taking guard outside the base. I didn't get a good feeling, so I walked out. It should have been the Christmas today, but he was punished by taking guard of Baghdad at night. He didn't feel sad at all, but I was not impressed.

At that time, Baghdad was in full night. Since Iraq is not a Christian country, we had to celebrate Christmas in our base, because it was not safe to prepare for Christmas.

Thomas Derna and I walked outside and when we looked on several houses. Of course, many of them had no idea what was Christmas. The patrol of night was boring like that, and perhaps it would remain boring, if there were not this story to come …

…

…

When we crossed through an abandoned garbage, we suddenly saw a man. He had a cross on his neck, showing that he was a Christian. But behind him were a group of Muslim kids, I could see from their belief.

What next? I heard that he was speaking to the kids. From what I understood, he was telling them about the greatness of Christmas, as it was 21:00 in Iraq. Thomas, with his friendliness, quickly came to them, despite armed with weapons. I didn't understand what he wanted, but I must follow them.

The Priest was actually not bad for us. He welcomed us to speak with us in the street of Baghdad. Baghdad was not hospitable for guests, so he was some few guys I liked.

The kids might have been scared of us because they saw us with weapons. The Priest told them that, we could not sit together with the kids because they feared you, but he would try to convince them to listen from mine and Thomas. After that, we accepted, as long as it was good for those children.

We talked with the Priest.

"What are you doing, sir?"

"Well, I am teaching them what is Christmas. They get excited and I want to tell them that."

"Why are you there? Being a Christian Priest there must be a tough job."

"In the past, of course, we had a lot of hardship. Despite Saddam is a secular, nonetheless his belief is sectarianism and he killed many people who are not similar in faith to his Sunni."

"That was hard time, right?"

"Not hard much, but not good either. I felt terrible."

"Why don't you move to Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon? They are the most tolerant towards Christians by being majority Muslim?"

"Because I was born there. I was a son of Jesus, I would remain there."

"Good job man."

Thomas spoke: "Do you have something else?"

Thomas Derna was focusing on. The Priest also invited us to take dinner together if we wanted since it was Christmas, but Tom quickly denied. He told to the Priest, despite we wanted, but we also had more important people to do.

I didn't bother much.

…

But soon I understood, Thomas also thought for our comrades fighting in Iraq. He still knew it and he wanted me to remember where should we belonged too. We are soldiers, and we shall.

…

The Priest, seeing that, he wondered us that, what would you think if, one day, Christmas could become popular among Iraqi citizens and not just limited among Christians.

I just …

"My friend, I believe it'll."

"Thank you."

He smiled. Before we left, I asked him what was his name. He told me he was Abdel Abu Kareem. Wow, never thought that name could be applied for Christians, since Abdel mentions only … muslim names.

I bet he must be an Assyrian.

…

…

…

Thomas understood that, being an American, he must be loyal and remain a subject of the country till death, so he was happy to stay there. I understood, and we both returned base. It was midnight when we returned.

And when we headed back, suddenly, someone called us:

"Come here. Let's celebrate."

"Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell …"

So they welcomed us. More likely, Tommy. Tom was tough, but very loyal and truthful to friends, so many of us welcomed him to celebrate Christmas. We started to have a small celebration, by drinking French wines and Russian-Polish-Ukrainian vodkas. We also enjoyed by eating chickens and made a small smile, with a picture.

That day, 25th December, came with a good ending …

…

…

…

"Merry Christmas, brothers."

So be it …

…

…

…

In morning, we surprisingly founded that we got gifts. So it was great! For most of us, this Christmas was sweet and wonderful. But due to situation in Iraq, we had little times to say happy. Rather, we had to return to duty.

And that's it. Everything went to 30th December, when we began to execute Saddam Hussein. Prior to 30th, Tom proved to be awesome, when he locked and killed three Al-Qaeda fighters, as well as capturing two others. This protected the security area when we announced the execution of Saddam Hussein.

We decided to execute him in the capital, and we would not harm his children or his relatives. But we had executed the most brutal dictator of Iraq in a controversial moment we didn't want to speak about. Enough was enough.

"Today, based on the convictions of crimes, we have enough evidence to execute the most brutal dictator in the history of Iraq, Saddam Hussein!"

We also took the approval to hang Saddam, and … it went through.

…

…

…

…

…

Thomas Derna, or say as Tomasz, Tommy, Tom, etc … he would have gone to become a daredevil, having taken many journeys to other countries, like in Cuba, Brazil, Colombia. He even had photos with FARC rebels. Fuck!

He has more things to speak about what would have gone … under him …

…

* * *

#####

I walked away from there, to see this damn memoir. Well ya!

I never thought about it.

I kept going between the story of others and others. Never wondered which kind of room.

I was unhappy but that's enough. Really? Right? It was damn rude and stupid right?

I didn't care.

I would not lose more times to risk without perpetration. I wondered how to care on and on …

…

…

…


	9. Jacek Brzech

The longer we walked on the Heavenly Host, shitty smells, deadly bodies and tragic deaths, the more I got freaked up with the abysmal there. Must be someone so tragic, but thanked for my religious experience, I raised both my Catholic and Orthodox crosses, saying:

"Dear the spirit, if you are willing, come and talk, stop pranking, or the sword of God will judge on you!"

As I stood to speak against the angry of the spirit, I soon even saw more painful scenes. I hated these deadly thinking, but …

I checked another body, and then, I looked on her ID card …

"Emi Urabe."

From what I saw, I knew she was killed by a wound in her head. I could not speak out of all these, but I needed to understand what Miyu just told me, wasn't fake at all. I soon returned to the duty and I immediately took charge because the time for me wasn't long anymore.

I must figure out. And in that moment, I looked on something brighter, of course, to let Emi's spirit to be in peace …

…

…

…

* * *

#####

July 2007

Karbala, Iraq

I walked away from these thing.

Having just suffered six months to butcher a lot of bastard insurgents were too much for me. Ever since Saddam's execution, the more insane those insurgents were. They committed suicide attacks, bombing on several places and attacking the army, including foreign force. Several countries were forced to withdraw their troops. To handle these bastards, we also depended on Armenian, Georgian and Bulgarian battalions, who did better than us. They did.

Still, I got a buff with the Poles. The Poles had been with us from the beginning, and we could not miss them too. After defeating a bunch of bastards in Ramadi, I went to Karbala.

The people of Karbala were going home earlier than usual. I didn't know why, until I heard some Arabic words …

…

…

"العراق سيلعب في تايلاند! العراق سيلعب في تايلاند!" ( _Iraq will play Thailand! Iraq will play Thailand!_ )

Soccer. I soon realized this.

Iraqis are passionate people and very devout to soccer. However, comparing their soccer history, they only have one World Cup to play, in 1986 when our neighbor Mexico hosted it. I decided to buy a poster and then I found which tournament they were looking forward.

The 2007 Asian Cup. Oh …

I guess very few know about the Asian Cup, so I can tell shortly: the Asian Cup is a prestigious tournament for teams from Asia, perhaps members of the AFC (Asian Football Confederation). The tournament was founded at 1950s and first played at 1956. Since then, the tournament ran similarly to the UEFA European Cup (called Euro) founded four years later, but due to the Euro too popular comparing to Asian Cup, the AFC decided to move into odd years. So after 2004, it went to 2007.

This tournament amazed everyone. The first ever soccer tournament in the world to have four host nations: Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.

One more thing, this would be the debuting edition of Australia, having moved from Oceania to Asia. The Australians had their reason: they're too strong for the rest of Oceania. And I agreed, just looked on how they performed in 2006 World Cup, it was good.

But same to the U.S., Australia isn't a soccer country. It loves rugby and cricket. So this was seen as "when Australia became a soccer country".

Australia's participation for me was normal, because to progress needs a better level. Japan and South Korea are tough, same like Iran. Even those like Saudi Arabia could also put a good fight.

Due to Asia's poor soccer tradition, who qualified to World Cup can be seen as strong. So we had these teams, etc. Australia with two World Cups, Japan from 1998 onward, South Korea from 1986 onward, Iran with three World Cups, Saudi Arabia since 1994.

Of course, our Australian warriors waited for it very long, because they would play their match against Oman.

Then, I once again, came out. This time, I met …

…

…

 _ **Jacek Brzęch, 25 years old**_

Jacek himself was a bookworm in the school but later he joined the military, saying that he wanted something more impressive in his life. Let's vote for it.

Jacek rarely talks. He didn't bother talking. Talk for him was not nice enough. I felt he was extremely pseudomaniac. For Tadeusz and Dżemałudin, Jacek was seen as an insane because he didn't speak with us.

I never asked him that day, so I came to see what was he like. Well …

"Jacek."

He didn't respond. How strange.

…

…

"What the hell you're doing man?"

He was completely different than other Polish soldiers I met. I would remind an old story …

…

…

…

"Oto dziś dzień krwi i chwały,  
Oby dniem wskrzeszenia był!  
W tęczę Franków Orzeł Biały  
Patrząc, lot swój w niebo wzbił.  
Słońcem lipca podniecany  
Woła do nas z górnych stron:  
"Powstań, Polsko, skrusz kajdany,  
Dzis twój tryumf albo zgon!""

( _Today is a day of blood and glory,  
_ _Let it be a day of resurrection!  
_ _Gazing at France's rainbow,  
_ _The White Eagle launches into flight.  
_ _Inspired by the sun of July,  
_ _He calls to us from above:  
_ _"Arise, oh Poland, break your chains,  
_ _Today is a day of your victory or death!"_ )

That time, we sang the song of Polish marching song, _Warsaw 1831 uprising_. The Poles often have a tradition of singing their heroic song to cheering their fighting spirit against oppressors. In there, I must be in love with.

The Poles fought hard for them.

Yeah.

But then, I saw a soldier standing out there. He didn't make a damn and instead read a book of Henryk Sienkiewicz. I soon asked why didn't invite him, but their captain stated I shouldn't, because he was anti-social. I tried to ask further, but he declined, said I needed to explore it myself.

…

…

…

I got a bit. He was extremely quiet. I hated this fact, but I tried to get closer a bit because I bet I could know what did he hide from. I went to get contact with Jacek.

"My man, my man, what the hell you become so quiet and very interested on reading?"

Jacek only took response this time: "Nothing". I was surprised with his coldness, but I just stated: "C'mon, what are you hiding?" By then, I noticed his eyes turned with a deep sadness I never thought about. He was very quiet and perhaps, isolated for me. His sadness proved something he wanted to hide.

So, I made my target: "What's hurt you so much, my brother?"

Jacek turned up his head. He listened carefully again, when my question came to him. He spoke to me:

"It was much difficult for me to become a soldier, because … it …"

So he retold me the past of him …

…

…

In the past, his father, who was a soldier, used to be a member of the Polish Armed Forces, during 1991 received a new about Cambodia, had taken part of the troops being deployed to the country.

Cambodia had just suffered the darkest era in their history, with the rise of Khmer Rouge, and Vietnamese invasion. Prior to that, Cambodia used to suffer our bombing campaigns, and there were accusations from Cambodians against both Vietnamese and Americans for sponsoring and plundering the country.

The tragedy of Cambodia only ended thanked for Vietnamese invasion at 1979, but Vietnamese effort was deemed as futile. So they retreated at 1983 and finally departed away in 1989. Since then, the job was taken to the pro-Vietnamese Government, which they allowed UN peacekeeping mission to the country. Poland was one of the earliest participants in the UN mission, led by Australia.

His dad, Marek, worked in Cambodia at that time. He tried to witness the call of Cambodian natives. For Marek, the whole frightening moment came out when he and the Polish ground troops digged a grave of death people killed by Khmer Rouge. All just turned remains.

The Brzęch family is a long-tradition military family, dated back from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but even for Marek, he could never imagine such barbarism like this. The Khmer Rouge, our ally?

I didn't want to associate our country with. This was the war of two shitty communists, who care?

But, for Marek …

Marek was totally affected by the Cambodian war. Although he came on the time when Khmer Rouge had been totally weakened, his memoir from survivors scared him. He saw the barbarism, brutality and blood of both sides, and the ruins of Buddhist statues in the country, skeletons, he never thought for it. After digging, he could not get over.

He was so shocked that after a year, he decided to go back home. In 1999, Marek tried to kill his wife, which was also Jacek's son. Jacek was shocked to see the nightmare of Cambodia continued to haunt him, and he took the gun. When he saw how painful Mr. Marek was, and how scared his mom, Jacek looked onward to become a conscientious objector. His story was similar to Desmond Doss, who passed away a year before.

Jacek, however, had to take his arms and so he saw many bloody things. He could not imagine this, it must be more barbaric than Cambodia.

The Poles were tough guys, but they could not stand for these. Jacek was the first person who I saw to look toward to become a medic rather than combat soldier. So that's why he never attempted to shoot anyone, even if this were an insurgent.

"You truly want to become medic?" I asked.

"What on Earth be like, my friend?" Jacek expressed with deep sadden: "You guys chose to wage a war in Vietnam, Cambodia, those who wished to become their own countries. That was when those like Khmer Rouge, Vietcong came out. You said they killed innocents, yes; but you never thought your war caused so many deaths even you claimed to be pure war. Have you ever asked how many lives killed by your army?"

I was shocked.

"I know, the communists are pure evil, but the tragedies, you spread in Cambodia, fomented it. You killed innocents and dragged them to unwanted tragedies. It is also your nation's fault, too."

"I … Do you get afraid of blood?"

"Yes, and these crimes made me choose to be a medic, you know?"

"I don't want to talk … But I saw why."

I quietly understood that the story of Jacek and how Desmond Doss inspired them, so taking guns must be too much. The story of his father also shocked his feeling a lot.

Jacek Brzęch thought fair enough, and then, he wanted to drop his gun. He totally didn't want to take arm but wanted to train as a good man and medic who looked nothing more but to treat wounded people.

I soon realized why he was so silent few years. He didn't want to participate, rather wanted to be okay and helped someone, in good way.

I would not speak about how a Pole like him tried to become a medic, when you looked back on history. But the trauma of war and historical pain must have played a role there.

He wanted to become the Polish Desmond Doss!

…

…

…

I would wish the best for him. So now, I saw why he didn't want to join his comrades. He just felt too hard to accept, because of the dark.

So, this was why he distanced himself from everybody. I felt sorry for him, though. I never thought about it. Never, never thought about it.

Desmond Doss, man, you have inspired someone now … a year after you left this world …

…

…

…

…

…

After I saw the story, later, Jacek Brzęch later saved a squadron of Polish GROM being ambushed without using gun. It would be a positive change, and he was looking upon to become the Desmond Doss of Poland.

…

…

…

A year later, he finally passed to become a medic soldier rather than a fighter. Thus, he proved well and saved some group of our platoons. We owned him so much. But one of the most memoir moment is when he sheltered and saved the SEALs trapped by Al-Qaeda fighters in northern Iraq, that made his name popular among Poles.

I am proud of him. When he retired from the army after his mission in Afghanistan, 2012, he joined the veteran organization of Polish wars and raised issue, but later left after a year to live a normal and quiet life, with a happy wife he met when he was in Afghanistan. A Belarusian nurse, as what he stated. They have a daughter, and plan to have another kid.

Also, could he finally be one with the group? He could, by his achievements as a medic.

…

For me, they were happy …

… enough …

…

…

…

* * *

#####

In Heavenly Host, the good story of brave man turned to dust when I saw a lot of death body. I quickly left the body of Emi, went into an abandoned classroom to see why. Then, I heard the voice of someone …

"あなたがそこに来ると、あなたの運命が決まる。" ( _When you come there, your fate is set._ )

I immediately opened my eyes. I knew something abnormal, and I took the cross, yelled: "悲劇的な精神に来てください。 無実を殺すのをやめ、安らかに休みなさい。" ( _Come, the tragic spirit. Stop killing innocents and rest in peace._ ) By the mean time, I held my secret weapon, waiting for her …

…

…

…

Then …

…

…

…

A table from left flied to me. But thanked for my experience, I took my sword and cut into half of the table. It was totally broken, and the spirit's reaction was a total madness.

"あなたは、外国人でとても無知です。" ( _You're so ignorant, foreigner._ )

"Foreigner? Motherfucker, you behead and murder some, for what?" I laughed. Since I have my weapon to handle, I knew the spirit was extremely dangerous, and my war combat skills proved to be useful for this occasion.

The voice, however, was the exact from the death's target. It was …

…

…

"Come to me, Sachiko Shinozaki!"


	10. Mateusz Schwanberg

Much as I claimed … it must be the spirit of Sachiko Shinozaki, the person I was eager to hunt down. I was more prepared because I was no ghost, yet I used to visit the hell once and helped by angels.

I'll lessen my words to mention about the threat from Sachiko. It was like ISIS, but with a more feminine way, yeah. Yeah, and still very barbaric by my opinion, shortly.

I took my arms and cut down the wall, where I discovered a number of death bodies. This time, however, a relevant person stood there reminded me a lot of.

A girl, with a cold, hostile face, hair covering all the face and we became silent. I had nothing but careful and cautious reputation, however, I hated this.

I wondered:

"What the hell you are going too, vengeful spirit?"

Sachiko Shinozaki!

I would never imagine about her, but then, she appeared to tell that, she never thought about my existence. However, I recognized her confident had not been faded, despite I broke her chance to kill me.

With my sword, I could have killed her. Sooner or later, the deadly face of Sachiko Shinozaki reminded me to a story …

…

…

…

* * *

#####

July 2007

Diyala Governorate, Iraq

Diyala Province.

Having been there, Diyala is very close to the border of Iran, where Iranian regime funded their proxies there. I had no clue about it, but it also has a large Sunni population.

I was one of the few Americans to be deployed to there and worked with the Georgians there. Colonel Tamaz Taiburashvili was the first person I joined with, and his assist for us was amazing. However, I also joined with Tadeusz and Jakub. Tadeusz was the only person that I truly got close among Polish GROM.

Having just passed few days, I continued to listen throughout the Asian Cup, and some results produced surprise: Vietnam beat UAE 2-0, Indonesia crushed Bahrain 2-1, Japan drew 1-1 Qatar; but our Australian friends fiercely criticized the performance of Australia, when they were held 1-1 by Oman earlier. Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea seemed to have a hard time getting with, but, Saudi Arabia and South Korea shared a similar group and they just drew 1-1. Only Iran had a good start, a 2-1 win over Uzbekistan.

Recently, I read about new of problem to stabilize Iraq had been highlighted due to numerous issues. Turkey had requested to stabilize Iraq, since it had problems with Iran over Azerbaijan, but we didn't have any idea for sure.

Tamaz told us to stay in an abandoned building and then, I walked out and asked why. Tamaz said he would contact with a local there. I didn't get out for such thing, but, it should have been …

Wait, for an instance, I would represent a Polish soldier I just got new one.

 _ **Mateusz Schwanberg, 24 years old**_

Mateusz Schwanberg is a Jew from Poland. Mateusz himself was part of Jewish community in Poland, and he always had a brief experience with …

The Jews in Poland have a very long and pretty proud of long historical bond. Jews were allowed to take refuge in Poland during the reign of Casimir the Great, and they had a long historical tolerance amidst the heat of hatred against Jews in Poland. However, since 20th century, Poland witnessed the rise of anti-Semitism due to Jews being accused for supporting Soviet Russians against Poland.

Nonetheless, in World War II, Poles were willing to defend and hide their Jewish population against Nazi persecution. After Israel was founded, Poland was one of the earliest nations to recognize her, a trait maintained until today.

Mateusz was extremely proud of being Polish, he always said so.

For Mateusz, Poland was the home, and he was a soldier of Polish Army, always felt proud of it.

When we dragged him with us, I believed it would be a relaxing moment. However, judging the violence nature in the province, we could not have a good breath. Rather, we must prepare for any suspicious attacks or moves of the insurgents. We knew the risk of being lonely there, especially in a violence province.

The war in main Iraq centre had helped us to make ready with anything to come. I took my eyes when I looked on a neighbor.

"Mohammed Salman."

I opened my eyes and wondered which neighbors be like. But hey! Mateusz immediately entered in and tried to take his attention. Soon, Mr. Mohammed was reckoned by Mateusz, and Mohammed thought Mateusz intended to hurt him. I had to enter in and speak in Arabic that he didn't have any bad thing on him.

Mr. Salman finally allowed to let me in, and I talked to him it was not that bad. Mateusz himself was a very friendly and much talking man. Despite he didn't know Arabic at all, he remained fair speaking with them.

I got annoyed with him.

"Mateusz, please shut your mouth down."

I would get pissed off if he didn't give up. At least, he did. Well, I thought the Jews were pretty much quiet and resilient, but Mateusz made me thought wrong about them. They were also loud, perhaps.

At least, I am not Nazi. And I didn't have to get Greenback Jane Bhai with me, who is now having a child with Benny. Ah, those Lagoon past, I met them for a job to handle those bastards drug lords hiding in Burma with the help from them. The Lagoon, from my understanding, had been disbanded following September 11th. No one knows their fate like.

I was not kind to, well, not too outgoing but, okay. I didn't try to impose anything else.

I walked away to see where should I keep my gun within. Mateusz, on the other side, looked around the building and wondered why did Mohammed choose to live with a reality dumped house. Mohammed just said that it was not a problem, but I wasn't sure for that.

Insurgents currently didn't active for some reasons. First, this was the football season in Iraq. Iraq team played in the tournament during the heat of war within, so people needed to take their interest to see Iraqis make miracle.

Mateusz himself was a soccer fan and remained since. He was not happy to see how Poland fared in 2002 and 2006 World Cups, so he was expecting Poland to go beyond in 2008 Euro qualification. Poland so far, played very well and was closer to their first ever Euro. Poland was an interesting case, they had played in many World Cups, but never qualified for Euro.

Mateusz was listening carefully about Mohammed, as I took translation for him. Aftermath, Mohammed told us to open the TV.

Oh yeah, Iraq would play Australia. It was 12:45 in Iraq, which mean 16:45 in Thailand, where two teams met. Our Australian comrades would spend times to watch, too.

I regarded it …

…

…

…

Then, after that, …

The commentators on TV yelled when Iraq surprisingly took 1-0 lead. A lot of Iraqis shouted and celebrated like they had never been happier. Of course it was the beginning. Mateusz himself asked:

"Just last year Australia even marched to round two. Why does Australia fare so poor this time?"

"Mat, please remember, Australia has not captured the new round of a new continent. In the past they only have New Zealand as opponent." I talked to him. Well, being more interested at soccer gives me a good perpetration. Thanks for it.

When Mohammed shouted happily, I realized how hard Iraq just went through. Iraqis are very passionate as I remembered, for me. They loved, they got frenzy, they went and lived in insane to see Iraq scored. Few days before, I saw Iraqis celebrated when they equalized against Thailand.

They considered soccer as the magnet to unite the whole country. According from the Ukrainian troops in there before, Iraqi kids play soccer when there was nothing to do.

…

…

And then, Mateusz witnessed Australia equalized. Mark Viduka scored a goal to equalize the result to 1-1.

I could not speak about it. I had to wait because everything had just gone to second half ya.

Mateusz and I could have stood out like that, if not Tadeusz who reminded us again. Tadeusz told to me that there was someone standing in the square of the small town, all face covered by long hair. I got startled, but because we and Mohammed were enjoying Iraq-Australia match, I had to speak to Mohammed that we would have a little business. And he agreed.

We walked out. Considering in the past, Iraq had never beaten Australia before, I saw the sense of wary among neighbors. But when an unknown girl walked with all hair covering entire of the face, we soon looked on. Our Georgian paratroopers also took charge with.

I could hear some of Georgian words, regarding about the threat from her.

"შეამოწმეთ გოგო!" ( _Check the girl!_ )

We intended to walk closer, but then, the girl surprisingly laughed. The deadly laugh, meaning that it would be …

"تموت ، أنت كافر!" ( _Die, you infidels!_ )

"Da fuck!" I soon realized she carried bombs, so I yelled: "GET BACK! GET BACK! GET BACK! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW …" Listening to me, all of them got startled and immediately ran. And then …

…

…

" **BOOM!** "

A big and destructive blast occurred in the small town as for the result of the suicide attack. What I didn't get right was why she didn't cover with hijab like any suicide women but rather … showing up with long hair covering whole face? Okay, that's new insurgent tactic.

Because I warned right on time, only three Georgians got injured, but most weren't serious. However, poor civilians living near the bombing were not that lucky, they were all killed. Thanked that Mohammed didn't live near, but the blast was so terrible that he could not watch anymore. Immediately, our troops tried to figure why, because at least seven to eight innocents were killed by her brutality.

Mohammed could not imagine on the time Iraq was playing against Australia in the Asian Cup, there could have a barbaric suicide bombing to happen.

That was sad, though.

…

…

After the bombing, we had to clean these stinky crimes left after the bombing. I wished it would not come again.

At least, Mateusz proved to be useful. He analyzed the whole situation and gave medical treatments to wounded brothers.

I would not speak about that much, but it was …

…

…

"Are you okay?"

"Mateusz! Can you just … oh forget it."

I gave a little breath. I wished I was in Ireland to play "Michael Collins" rather than staying too long in Iraq. But the way she attempted to make a suicide attack, … wait!

I noticed on the girl's eyes, it was something saddened from the past. She was just 8 years old to do such thing, but … she was truly in sadness, due to something behind that leaving her to do such thing. Why?

Mateusz kept treating the wounded why Tadeusz noticed about those injured soldiers. It had risen to six, damn it! Mateusz was a bit reckless, but what I recognized from him was his determination. He had will and ball to do, unlike some cowards outside …

I spotted on.

Mateusz did very well. And we risked on to look over despite the match was ongoing. Mohammed Salman also shut the TV and helped us to cure the wounded one, when our force had risen to eight injuries. I was saddened, a bit.

…

…

…

…

After an hour, we decided to risk someone to know, but no one knew the result of the match between Australia and Iraq like. Mohammed Salman had shut the TV at 57' of the match, so we had no idea.

Then, when we got tired, Mateusz opened the TV again. This time, it was screening …

Celebration!

A lot of Iraqis in Baghdad were celebrating. They danced, they happily laughed and smiled, singing songs as well. So, I asked what had just gone, until we found the result.

…

…

3-1.

Iraq beat Australia 3-1, Iraq's first ever victory over Australia at any soccer game. Adding with Thailand's earlier win over Oman, it put Australia to third, verge of elimination. Mr. Mohammed was happy but his happiness was not full due to the bombing.

For me, I still felt strange about the girl. Before her suicide attack, she was sad. But why? Must be a lot of physical pains. I never wondered why …

Quite …

…

…

I hate this smell.

Iraq's victory over Australia had impressed many kids and there was a large celebration, damn! Mateusz, you nailed me.

…

…

…

…

…

Mateusz would later become a writer of Polish politics after leaving the army in 2010, and since he was eager to maintain the tie, I had no reason to stop talking with him.

Recently, he has been critical against the new Polish law regarding Holocaust, fearing it would damage Poland on their face as a tolerant nation. However, judging how Israel supports current Donald Trump, he is not optimistic of it, citing a new era of racism may start there. He used to visit Israel and has called to vote against Likud.

Me? I don't care who the fuss is ruling Israel. As long as it doesn't piss on our interests, since I don't bother Trump or Bibi wannabe. But I understand Mateusz. However, the image of the sadden girl committing suicide still haunted me.

…

…

…

* * *

#####

And now, I met again. The same scene.

Jesus Christ! I have taken my gun and immediately I didn't hesitate to let it go. I soon found that she had run away, and the ground was about to collapse. I decided to jump on.

"FUCK! Motherfucker!"

I took my weapons and started firing. Each times I shot, I only saw the air and air, but it was enough for me to get breath. I shouted:

"Come here, the vengeful spirit!"

I broke the wall, ran as fast as possible to discover where was she. So what Miyu spoke was not wrong at all.

I kept running, and running to find where was Sachiko. And so be it …


	11. Adrian Lietsch

Time being, time being.

I felt surprised about Sachiko. Why did she keep a vengeful feeling?

I didn't know.

I would have to deal with the fact that Sachiko desperately wanted to murder anyone who fell into her own Heavenly Host. So Miyu mentioned about a vengeful ghost was real, I could not explain anything else about it.

With my gun held high, I took my eyes to another room. This time, I saw even a body that had been torn down into piece. Everything I saw, human meat, was freaky enough. But where did you know? Sachiko ran into this place, and when I saw, she was gone. Damn, what a ghost.

Hah! I would never tell about it, but later I checked her ID card and the body smashed to pieces in the wall was …

"Mayu Suzumoto."

RIP.

And no, I had watched the movie _R.I.P.D._ , but I knew nothing except police duty damn it, outside, they are all in graves at the cemetery. Hell you motherfucker ghostly coming there and then haunted the lives of normal civilians as police duty?

God bless you.

Okay, I looked on Mayu's corpse, but since she was torn down into pieces, I found very hard to identify. Back then, I just saw a number of headless, like Yui, Seiko and Miyu, but Mayu was even worse than those headless girls.

I was out. Couldn't believe it! Why?

And then, the damn nightmare returned …

…

… but I quickly turned down the fear. I would have tried to mention something positively. So I was eager to see where. And so, soccer once again hindered in my mind … at least, to prevent the gruesome death of Mayu …

…

…

…

* * *

#####

July 2007

Basra, Iraq

A lot of Iraqis celebrated when Iraq qualified to the knockout stage, by drawing Oman 0-0. Our Australian friends also celebrated following their 4-0 demolition of Thailand, effectively eliminated the host from the game with Oman together.

Some of our Omani friends in Basra shared solidarity and support with Iraq following their top position in the group stage of the AFC Asian Cup. Iraq would stay in Bangkok to battle Vietnam, who lost 1-4 to Japan, the defending champions of Asia but thanked to Qatar's defeat to the UAE, they progressed together. Reason? Vietnam previously beat the UAE 2-0 and drew Qatar 1-1.

In two other groups, Malaysia and Indonesia shared the same fate with Thailand. Criticisms of their poor performances ran high there, including press.

Speaking about that, suddenly I missed Wojciech. That half Vietnamese boy from Poland did listen about it, but he didn't get in touch with it much. Even so, Wojciech was eager to have a congratulation from other Polish comrade. If I weren't wrong, this was Vietnam's third Asian Cup appearance, because FIFA categorized their participation as the continuing of South Vietnam, which played in 1956 and 1960 editions. They congratulated Wojciech's father team.

When we were in Basra, some Iraqis, mostly Shittes who dominated the city, tended to be friendlier than other parts of Iraq. That was because Basrans hated Saddam Hussein whom himself was a Sunni, and they were among the earliest who provided intelligence for our force. So Basra was more peaceful.

Again and again, it was important for us to know, until …

"Do you think how it works?"

"Me? You're …"

"Hi, I'm Adrian Lietsch. Special paratrooper and sniper of the Polish Armed Forces."

 _ **Adrian Lietsch, 28 years old**_

Adrian Lietsch was an interested person. He is of German and Silesian origin, but he was raised in West Germany. Following the fall of communism, his parents brought him back to Poland, and he learnt Polish language. Although not too influent, it was good enough to get capture by the eyes of others.

However, he was good at English.

"Paratrooper and sniper? Very good."

"I will not speak much about my duty outside reporting to you."

Adrian and I would have a look about the situation of other cities in Iraq, Basra was least violence. So when we didn't want to take the batshit about, we entered Basra.

A lot of Iraqis in Basra was eager to take their perpetration to watch, because today would be Iraq vs. Vietnam. Some even showed the portrait of Younis Mahmoud, the most popular Iraqi player, back then.

Many Iraqis were enthusiastic about their winning hope, but they were aware of how the Emiratis and Qataris got their humiliation to the hand of the Vietnamese. Damn, did the Vietnam War come back again?

Adrian and I sought a short time to take a video. We looked upon trying hard to build our reputation. We took a video and started to scene the people around the city.

We talked with some locals.

"ما رأيك في أداء العراق؟" ( _What do you think about Iraq's performances?_ )

"لا يصدق جدا. بالطبع سيكون الأمر أصعب ، لكن سنفوز." ( _Very incredible. Of course it will be harder, but we shall win._ )

Well, since YouTube was founded two years ago, I tried to get in touch with the new page. I chose to let Adrian have his chance.

I started to interview with Iraqi locals. Thanked for my Arabic skill, I could easily get contact with.

"ماذا تتوقع من المباراة بين العراق وفيتنام؟" ( _What do you expect from the match between Iraq and Vietnam?_ )

"Iraq! Iraq! Iraq! We'll win!" Wow, well, they knew who were in their nation, so they used English too. But of course, their English is poorer than I thought.

Again, I had no power to decide whatever it should have gone. But I was eager to make and mark my words. Please remember my position!

And you!

Iraqis love soccer with an extreme passion more than we thought. It was just they didn't have a high level of success like neighboring countries. For example, Turkey has only two World Cups, but they won third place and the same position in Confederations Cup. Iran acquired three Asian Cups with Saudi Arabia too. Lack of success for Iraq could be explained by the fact Iraq didn't have a stable government.

Iraqis are also nationalists, they hate Saudi Arabia because of Palestinian cause, and according from them, Saudis are bastard Bedouins. They hate Iran due to a long bloody war between two. They hate Turkey as well, because they believe Turkey wants to turn Iraq into a Turkish land, but Iraqis didn't have power.

Just few days ago, we had a good discussion with the Turks, and Ankara had deployed a group of Turkish contractors to Baghdad and Basra. I learnt Turkish before, so I am extremely influent on this language.

I could not explain for all, but I guessed the Turkmens of Iraq would watch Younis Mahmoud. Mahmoud, a Turkmen from Iraq, was the idol of every Iraqis and perhaps in Turkey as well. Adrian analyzed that Mahmoud had brought a fever for Iraqis due to his performance.

But it was not all proven. I wanted to see more than that.

"Can you stop!? Damn it!"

Adrian was surprised: "Why?" As he stopped screening for a moment, I requested for some people to take their words. Adrian, who himself made his path easily, quickly got a call.

We continued to take our attention with noble people there because of my interests with the war in the soccer fans there. I knew soccer, and I loved it.

It would be better!

Adrian and I are both soccer fans and we love waiting for goals. Because soccer unites and represents for us the might and power. We got a big interests over it and this could have a feeling that it would be a big match.

That's it.

Adrian and I after screening the people, we easily took it back and soon we connected with our computer where we began to connect with the Internet. We downloaded the video immediately.

"Taking, taking, one, two, three."

Of course, I didn't use YouTube. I used Adrian's account and so we got a great moment to do.

And that afternoon, Iraq played their quarter-finals against Vietnam. This would have become a memoir of many Iraqis for a maiden final, and two goals from Younis Mahmoud enabled Iraq into the semi-finals.

Two goals made many Iraqis celebrated in the street as Iraq advanced to the semi-finals. For the first time, we didn't have to patrol the street like that.

Damn. It was great. Adrian was brilliant, the video he got soon boosted by many followers. Yay!

…

…

…

…

…

Adrian Lietsch would later become a popular YouTube user in Poland, and he got interested on playing games. Damn, he is still very childish for me, even he is 38.

His son, who is 10, also gets the same attitude like him. Hahahahahaha …

…

…

…

* * *

#####

Okay, but that was the only greatest moment. Enough is enough.

Again, and again! I did not care on it. But the gruesome death of Mayu would have something to do. Then, I cut down the wall by my strength of my own katana. I continued hunting Sachiko Shinozaki, knowing that only her could have to end the madness …


	12. Bartosz Maciejko (1)

As I kept running to hunt down the ghost of Sachiko, my experience continued to change …

It changed variously. The Heavenly Host was ugly! Really. Must be even worse than Iraq. Iraq was no match for this shitty place.

Then, I quickly returned to the story when I came to hunt Sachiko. After cutting out, I soon faced someone …

"In the name of Jesus, I shall expel you!"

That moment, when I blasted the other wall, could be seen with something I never thought for. And that moment brought me back again …

…

* * *

#####

July 2007

Kirkuk, Iraq

"Down! Down!"

We just cracked down a suspected group of insurgents linked with Al-Qaeda and Taliban of Afghanistan, however we also caught up with the mess there.

Kirkuk is a very diverse city. Overwhelming population includes Arabs, Turkmens, Assyrians, Yazidis and Kurds. In my opinion, they do not share similar understanding, and continue to be different in most of their chapters.

When we just cracked down a bunch of bastard, we immediately recognized these bastards, and soon took them away from the building. We put a skirmish, sure.

Working with the GROM again, Jakub and his men helped us with a group of Romanian paratroopers. They soon questioned me after that:

"What's going on now?"

"No idea." I smiled: "But many of them are busy buying flag ready for the big party."

I was aware because of Iraq team had passed beyond expectation. In the semi-finals I watched few days ago, Iraq shocked everyone by defeating South Korea, a giant of the continent, after penalty shootout. Iraq would play against their regional rival Saudi Arabia in the final of the AFC Asian Cup.

Although Iraq had a better head-to-head record, Saudi Arabia usually beat Iraq in big tournaments, which was seen as somehow, shame for them. Saudi Arabia also played in four World Cups, which Iraq only had one, made the all-Arab final became tough test for them.

But what made most Iraqis still felt the heat on their match against Saudi Arabia, was because of the Gulf War. That war, according from Iraqis, was a war of liberty against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Iraqis deeply care of Palestinian issue, which I found more complicated than you thought. For them, Saudi Arabia is the enemy of Palestinians because of their expulsion, and Iraq was ruined today thanked to Saudi Arabia. Its people there were very hostile.

But, the Kurds, Yazidis, Turkmens and Assyrians were few exclusion. The Kurds especially hate Saddam, and they resist Arabization seriously to an extent that they would love seeing Iraq disorganized. The Turkmens also hate Arabization as well because they identify with Turkey and pan-Turkism, though they have conflict with the Kurds; and this mean Turkmens would love to see a disunited Iraq in term of Turkish interests.

Pan-Turkists claimed Kirkuk as well as half of Iraq to be part of Turkey. Kurdish group opposed it and wanted to establish Kurdistan. Saddam before 2003, feared any possible Turkish incursions, decided to give his piece in the north to the Kurds, where a regional Kurdistan was founded.

Jakub studied about the ethnic situation in Iraq seriously, and from my understanding, no one in Iraq "trust each other".

"Iraq is not a stable nation, from my view."

"They have too many ethnics, but the Arab south clashed with more diverse north."

"In my understanding, this city is where most of people hate Arabs. Arabs, forming a significant minority there, face many struggles due to Saddam's past."

"They wanted Saddam in power. Now they have to enjoy it."

I didn't trust the Arab population much, likely due to their behavior. Very few were friendly with us. I even heard about a Kurdish local claiming that Arabs there often chanted about another Anfal (the Anfal genocide caused by Saddam) and Halabja (similar to Anfal). This prompted me to believe the Arabs wanted to kill all of these, and it caused entire of non-Arab population to unite against the Arabs.

The Turkmens, or also claimed as the Turks, hated Saddam Hussein so much because Saddam attempted to Arabize them and replaced Turkish into Arabic customs, and they would support any Turkish invasion to Iraq.

The Assyrians claimed they were discriminated for being Christians and forced relocation as well, irony was, Tariq Aziz, the Deputy Minister of Ba'ath Iraq, was a Christian, but due to his support for Arabization and forced Islamization, he wasn't liked nor respected among Assyrians.

Yazidis and Druzes claimed they were forced to follow Islam by Saddam.

Yeah …

…

…

I and Jakub patrolled the street. The Polish and American troops were omnipresent in Kirkuk.

"How do you think about possible incursion?" I asked.

"I don't know. Maybe a day next?"

"Or even at night."

They walked in and discovered a good thing: guns.

"Bitch! Guns? OMG!"

We saw a lot of guns when we secretly patrolled an abandoned building in Kirkuk. I walked out and mentioned about it:

"There is a smell of girls."

"Huh?"

I and him, really?

…

…

…

Suddenly, a captain arrived. He was …

"C'mon. These weapons are discovered by mine."

"Really?"

Oh yeah …

 _ **Bartosz Maciejko, 34 years old**_

Maciejko had Slovak-Czech root, and he was fluent in both languages outside Polish. Unlike most Poles, he was a Protestant, but I read that he was not interested on believing anything.

"Do you still suppose anything, my American friend?"

"Would it be … well, I don't care …"

I hate some kind of asshole, but hell fuck, that Bartosz was even a damn fucker! Bartosz quite laughed more than he worked. For Bartosz, he just thought for his own self. Damn this fucking arrogant.

"Let me have it."

Some asshole gave me actually a good riddance. As for me, Bartosz, that liar …

"Yeah, get the hell with it, fuck!"

I immediately walked out. And did you know why?

Because from Bartosz's eyes, there was something abnormal, it was like, "I want to have and I must have because I am your overlord." He seemed to compete with anyone and didn't respect the position much. Really.

Of course, I only wanted to forget. We just walked out as people were eager to make thing happened.

…

An hour later, we took a roof, carefully watching a target. Sure, I just heard a new that there was a suspected bomb maker entering Kirkuk, and we must disable it.

But when we were expecting to do, the asshole returned.

"Hey, c'mon!"

Bartosz.

Bartosz was a sniper in our side. He took charge with the gun on his chest, ready to aim. Oh yeah, a Valmet rifle from Finland, which was extremely effective. Finland isn't a member of NATO, but their alliance with NATO allowing us to use their products.

"Let's see who will fare better."

"Spend enough, fool." I got mad: "Don't you idiot have something to do with?"

Of course, I ranked higher than him, but he seemed care nothing for it at all.

"Matter? Only if we can kill some there."

Jakub used a Barrett, mode M99 with 416 Barrett cartridge. I never understood that much, but Polish industry is complex for their modern war. Hell then.

"Have you people had something to do?"

I got mad, but quietly we saw him. The target, codenamed "Abubakar". We aimed on his bodyguards, while Jakub aimed to him. I suggested Bartosz to make his eyes on, but from my understanding, Bartosz also wanted to kill Abubakar.

They should walk, rather.

In our view, we saw Abubakar was walking carefully. The target was originally a brainwashed jihadist from Cameroon, the northern part of this country. Cameroon is our stun ally and they have 10% muslim population in the north, which make them a hard time to control.

Cameroonian military has proven to be tough by killing a lot of jihadists, mostly Boko Haram one, and there are advisors from Cameroon to train in Iraq. However, since Cameroonian intelligence identified a jihadist from Cameroon to be in Iraq, we decided to take down him.

Abubakar was there, chance had come …

"Can you point directly his head?" I questioned Jakub.

"Not really. Although I can surely target him, his bodyguards are too many and they can cover him from this distance."

"C'mon, c'mon. Just these shitty scums of Al-Qaeda fighters, we can kill them very easy." Bartosz spoke out: "We can kill this fag."

"Show me that, please." I demanded. Then, Bartosz immediately shot.

He took down a bodyguard. They got scared, as from the view of mine of the reaction of Abubakar and his guards. Then, on the same time, Bartosz decided to shoot down Abubakar. Quick enough, as those guards were not ready, something flied away.

Bam!

Bartosz shot and he hit Abubakar. However, Abubakar reacted very fast. He quickly entered the car, ordered other to close and left the place. I felt that was suck, so I decided to take part:

"Asshole!"

Jakub quickly shot the driver, as the car was ahead instead of turning back. He did it! Then the car ran very fast and hit the wall of the house where we were standing. This also injured Abubakar.

We threw the bomb into those bastards and we killed over 5 of them. They had been running behind Abubakar and had no idea of our presence.

As the Croats said: "Za dom, spremni!" We decided to make the last ambush and finally we eliminated all other guards. But Bartosz was extremely reckless, because I realized there was an oil rig and we could shoot and kill them.

At least, none of them knew our up roof position.

We stepped down and we looked beyond. Of course, none of us forgot Abubakar, but when we saw on, he was seriously injured.

I hated how Bartosz behave. If he were smarter, we could not lose so much times. Dang him!

Then, we decided to capture Abubakar and took him to captivity under our prison. At least that was the best time for me …

…

…

…

Then, suddenly, I heard about it, the match between Iraq and Saudi Arabia had started. I would have a lot of time to take answer …


	13. Bartosz Maciejko (2)

"I didn't mean much, Bartosz …"

…

…

Again, this faggot continued to behave arrogantly. I hated him so much that I wished I was working with Jakub more than him.

After we took Abubakar, Bartosz, Jakub and I walked away. We were eager to take charge when the people were gathering to watch the final between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It was a moment when we began to face up with the fact, terrorists would be anywhere.

Troops were deployed to guard and sanctioned their positions around. Somehow, it reminded me to the moment Brazilian supporters came around. During 2002 World Cup, a lot of Brazilians were in Japan, including Japanese Brazilians, the largest Japanese community outside Japan. They danced, cheered, jumped and shouted in the name of Brazil.

Brazilian squad of 2002 was considered one of the greatest squads in the world, nothing could surpass their generation. Besides it included the 1970 squad, which was recognized as another Brazilian great squad. I love soccer because of its beauty and extreme passion.

I have a friend from Brazil, so not hard to realize we share similar patterns. But again, I must stabilize the position.

"تحرك للخارج! تحرك للخارج! و اجلس هناك!" ( _Move out! Move out! And sit there!_ )

When we walked down there, the big TV was set and in the square center of Kirkuk, Iraq and Saudi Arabia were ready. The final of the Asian Cup was held in Indonesia, the world's most populous muslim nation, so they got some bromance.

At the time, I soon asked:

"How the hell you can do so many shitty things, Bartosz?"

As Bartosz reorganized the crowd and putting them into order, I never mentioned that he could even use his authority. In fact, he could befriend very fast with several locals, even if they saw him with gun. Well, I guess he was more complicated than I thought.

He befriended with them and spoke out about the possibility of renting a place for them to do business while not touching on security group. I had to say that. He was not even afraid to get close with some people there, including women and children.

Then …

"Hell, kid, what the fuck you can do so good?"

Bartosz, after he found me there, he gave a short smile and then he told: "The best way to win the people is to live like them."

Bartosz was very excellent in Arabic. Arabic, which is very close to Hebrew proven to be useful. Bartosz could speak both languages and his fondness with children even claimed for it.

And Iraq started their final.

…

The battle between Iraq and Saudi Arabia started on, Jakub questioned why Bartosz could get himself so close. We meant, he could speak, entertain and very fond of those Kirkuk locals. It was risky but quite good.

Then Bartosz always smile took his answer:

"Well, I have to be friend, if we don't want to lose market and, to fight against terrorists."

"What do you mean exactly?"

"I mean is simple. We need to show that we are able to talk and speak with them. I have used my good relations with a number of people to isolate terrorists. These relations must be built longer."

Then, he pointed on the way we captured Cameroonian terrorist Abubakar, and we soon questioned: "What does it help anyway?"

But his explanation was clear. Because the natives are not friendly to foreigners, the best way is to live and associate with them. Bartosz was smart to gain the trust of foreign, by virtual understanding of locals. He wasn't hesitate to learn Arabic, as well as Kurdish. Then he tied with their life to win the locals.

By doing so, he established a number of secret link that serving for the allies' intelligence. In that case, I could not deny the smart way of his business.

"Really?"

"Yes, if you want to do something."

He was eager not to take anything. It was 15' crossing and the score was 0-0. I soon realized that. After all, Bartosz wasn't as always stupid as I thought about.

Anyway, I learnt that many locals were friends of Bartosz. This brought an advantage and it explained why he could attack Abubakar and his gang easily.

Alright, I voted for it.

…

…

…

And we just happily watched the match. Bartosz later explained another number of accounts before he made laugh by his rumors between 45' of each half. Cool!

…

…

…

…

…

And the result, well … we will allow it to talk in another chapter.

Bartosz Maciejko would later go to become a humorist. And he had a tradition of "ready planned", proven he wasn't stupid at all.

I could not love it more. But I still got annoyed with how arrogant he was.

…

…

…

* * *

#####

And I was staying to the dirty, gooking place known as Heavenly Host. Really?

Never thought about it …


	14. Andrzej Wardelik

After that, I decided to cut down the wall, where I faced up a damn, motherfucker Sachiko Shinozaki was standing there, in an abandoned class of the Heavenly Host. With a sword, and a Catholic cross, I demanded immediately:

"So, what the fuck you have been there?"

"I thought you could have been smarter. But you aren't."

"Are there any requirements for this?" I immediately noticed over: "Any requirements?"

She didn't bother. After a long running, we met again. She took a quiet speech, immediately reckoned mine …

"You came, you must die …"

I immediately took a shot. But then she reacted very fast. Soon after, I had to bless my katana and take a strike:

"Hit it you bastard."

I broke her attempt, and she seemed to feel out the fact that I was far different than any other people who fell there before. I was not an idiot but a full-time experienced fighter, even I had zero contract with professional fighting organizations or Academi.

"You murdered a number of people for your selfish vengeance. Now, why don't you forgive them and let them be in peace? Even you?"

I knew it when I had listened the sonata of Frédéric Chopin during the time I was in Iraq, all happened following in the last year …

* * *

#####

January 2008

Baghdad, Iraq

In a piano standard, a soldier whom I had never met before, was a new rookie. He was deployed in the day when Iraq won the Asian Cup last year.

Yeah, that moment saw many Iraqis celebrated and yelled "Long live Iraq!" and they even ruined their own by committing suicide attacks. Lol. I didn't mind on it either.

Said, a piano was placed there perhaps had something to do.

…

…

Oh yeah, here was the boy.

 _ **Andrzej Wardelik, 21 years old**_

Andrzej Wardelik was a rookie deployed when the Polish mission in Iraq was about to end, in October last year. The Poles had started to clean up their base and got ready to leave their zone. Under permission, Polish Army was offered to charge in Baghdad for the last two months before their complete withdrawal.

He was a Marine. Himself had a distant Hungarian origin, because his late grandmother, was partly Hungarian. The Hungarians had left Iraq earlier than the Poles.

…

That moment made me realized the expensive of love and lifestyle. Andrzej had a great hobby. He loved piano when he was young, and he often cited Chopin as his impression. Chopin, the half French half Polish child, who later became impression of every people, belonged to Poland.

Andrzej soon took a moment to play, as his garrison was about to clean it up. He played a sonata written by Chopin, and there was an extreme love, deep respect I saw from Chopin.

In all history of musical players following Chopin's death, only Stanislav Bunin from Russia was able to be called " _the messenger of Chopin_ ".

Interestingly, from what I heard, Bunin's wife is a Japanese. Thus he maybe a clear example of how Japan influenced his life on becoming Chopin's deliver. Bunin's ancestry could be traced back to Heinrich Neuhaus, a German-Russian musician, pianist and thus he had indirect ancestry with Poland's Karol Szymanowski.

Bunin was the idol of young Andrzej.

And so Andrzej played a sonata, by himself.

…

…

…

Oh, a piano. He made us like living back with Chopin's dream before death, and I would say, "magnifico".

The first foreign language I studied was Spanish, so I was able to memorize the language very easy. I spoke Spanish very fluent and I got a big booming from this.

Andrzej played the Nocturne. I am not a musician or even an expert, but all I could describe was, slow, but romantic, traumatic, sad yet hopeful. This made me love Chopin's works, so amazing.

Andrzej played it for four minutes.

…

…

…

After playing, I touched my hands. He did an extremely good job. Then, I asked:

"May I ask you a question, Andrzej?"

"Yeah?"

"I just want to tell that, this is superb."

"You like Chopin?"

"Yes, I do. I am not musician, etc."

Andrzej was an interesting person. He didn't mind about how hard, he just wanted to love. In fact, being raised in a musician family, Andrzej found himself easier to get in touch with his soldiers more.

I questioned him that if he loved music, why did he choose military career. He stated that, it was because of a surprising decision.

At first he didn't intend to join the army, as he graduated in a high score and was aiming to Warsaw Chopin Music University. But then, he found that he would not join due to economic burden at home, and even he loved it, he found the family was in hardship. To solve it, he decided to join the armed forces.

Nonetheless, his love for music didn't disappear. I aimed on this story:

"I love your impression."

As always.

I asked him that if he arrived a bit late comparing to other, after Polish Government announced their withdrawal from Iraq. There was a rumor that, due to Poland's successful Euro 2008 campaign leading them to their maiden appearance in Europe's big stage, those soldiers were granted to go back home.

Andrzej smiled deeply within, he stated that he would love to see about Polish soldiers returned home, and he liked it. His battalion was among the earliest battalions to be sent home after their duty. By my understanding, it was expected to happen.

…

…

…

My meeting with Andrzej was short and it had nothing much, but my impression on him was high. I loved this man.

And truly, after two years, he decided to quit the army to focus on education to become a pianist, and he was heading toward for his dream.

I would cheer him if he played, though. The Poles were gonna leave, and we wanted to thank them for their support. Having Andrzej to play in the ceremony honoring Polish Armed Forces' participation in Iraq proved to be useful, and we did have it.

…

…

…

…

…


	15. Maria Espinoza Butkowska

Let's end this …

I spoke to her when Sachiko was standing. Sachiko, a vengeful spirit, had killed many innocent lives and I would say, fuck!

Unfortunately for her, I am no near these victims. My war experiences proved it. I quickly raised my hand and used my sword. She jumped up. What a ghost like.

"You cannot catch me, cat."

"Whatever you said. Motherfucker." I felt pissed off a bit but I surely had my understanding. I shot her in the roof and she was gone.

I knew it. She had escaped again. And then I looked about the move. I tried to shoot again, and quickly I took my sword, cutting down the piece of the roof. Quite enough, everything suddenly vanished when I saw she blew up. I used my own matador to fend back, and it worked.

However, I must say her ability was damn fearful.

"Damn."

As much I was shooting, I suddenly remembered to the last story line …

…

…

…

* * *

#####

March 2008

Mosul, Iraq

I was breathing with other when the Poles had started to depart away. But then, when I was sitting, I heard music.

Spanish music!

In the cleaning ground of the base, I heard about the music and when I came out, I saw a lot of men were looking on. A soldier wearing Polish banner even played guitar. That was when I contacted with the girl there.

 _ **María Espinoza Butkowska, 18 years old**_

She was a dancer and just graduated from school for two months, but she was quick to adhere into hospital job.

Let me tell something. María Espinoza herself was a mixed child. She was born with a Polish mother and a Spanish father. When she was three, they moved to Poland. Butkowska herself also had Belarusian root.

Butkowska and I met each other for the first time, and this half Spanish girl came out.

She was only able to speak Spanish and her Polish was a bit struggling despite she moved to Poland, as she enrolled in a Spain-funded school in Lublin and carried Spanish rather than Polish. At least, in an extent, I could hear Spanish and Polish mixed together in her tongue.

She was dancing flamenco and she evolved well. But I would take my words.

"Muy bien, muy bien, niña. ¿Cuál es tu nombre?" ( _Very good, very good, girl. What's your name?_ )

After she finished her dance, she saw a brief of different people, mostly elders. She knew it was a good chance to prove, so she answered me:

"María Espinoza Butkowska."

"Chica increíble. Me encanta tu baile." ( _Amazing girl. I love your dance._ ) I'd my praise for her.

She was surprised that I could speak Spanish, but to make it fair, my Spanish is a Spanish dialect similar to Mexican dialect because I work in Texas. So there were some differences, like that Mexican Spanish requires to be faster than pure Spanish.

These differences, of course, are irrelevant.

"¿Cuantos años tienes?" ( _How old are you?_ )

"18."

"Muy joven. ¿Por qué no te quedaste en España?" ( _Very young. Why didn't you stay in Spain?_ ) That moment, I heard the name, it sounds Spanish for sure, but her family name suggested another while.

"Mi familia se mudó a Polonia y luego mi papá consiguió un trabajo allí." ( _My family moved to Poland and later my dad got a job there._ ) María explained.

I smiled. Then, I wondered why a young girl like her decided to enroll into military career. She explained that, in fact, she got interested when she knew about Polish troops in Iraq and the lack of needed doctors, so she after graduated from school quite early, had decided to become interested on career. She would go to better career.

For many Poles, she came quite late but looking on the age, it was justified. She was born later.

Andrzej Wardelik told that he and a new girl arrived there. I remembered when I discuss with him before and I realized Andrzej there. Andrzej was happy to meet María until it was realized that Andrzej's younger brother, also 18, was María's love interest.

Andrzej Wardelik knew María Espinoza Butkowska when he heard about a story in his brother's school three years ago. So I met Andrzej, again.

"Hey, Andrzej, you know her?"

"She is interested in my brother and I knew that."

"Oh!" I was surprised. For me, I was impressed with her dance and she gave me a lot of emotions. Look on her feet, she was rocking, she was moving, but she controlled her body well.

I didn't know who taught her at youth but, it was perfect. Geez.

The Poles in Iraq were quite funny guys. But they were able to get a lot of fun. Although there were some killed in actions, but they still considered it as an action to test themselves and to be braver.

They did salute their fallen warriors, though.

…

Andrzej shared his condolence with María because of Andrzej's brother was too ignorant to realize her existence. The boy was planning to become a doctor, to save the family itself. For Andrzej, it was better to tell, but the concern of family's economy had raised questions.

Andrzej told to me that he had a brother, named Tomisław. His little brother didn't care on other things outside study, and he, similar to his older brother, was extremely smart. But unlike Andrzej, Tomisław was anti-social.

Andrzej criticized the lack of entertainment of Tomisław. He offered Tomisław to be more social, but this was not a good job.

To comfort María, Andrzej stated he would try to bring her to his home.

I told that if the boy were not social, better tried to lure him outside and then it would work. Of course after they went back home.

María stated that she would address this in one day if she returned to Poland, and it would be better to have their common.

I didn't get much.

María herself worked as a special team curing injured soldiers returning from Iraq, and her duty was clear. She was deployed in early February this year for the same reason.

She was a very careful person and truly cared for others. I appreciated this when I saw a group of youth nurses curing injured personnel. She must be one of them, though I was not sure.

Later, in an attempt to say thank, she decided to make a dance. Me and Andrzej looked on.

…

Look on her feet …

…

She moved slowly, yet beautiful, but quick to capture the fact. I remember in Spanish language, a girl who could dance and move without stripping on others are known as " _bailarina gitana_ ", which mean " _gypsy dancer_ ", based on the gypsies. In the past, it was used to mock other people of Romani background, mainly in Andalusia, but now it became Spain's national treasure.

Wonder why.

Butkowska must be quite that and she, slowly moved, affected by love, got emotions.

…

…

…

…

…

María later confessed to Andrzej's younger brother Tomisław in a surprised way when she went home. She kissed on his lip and he was surprised, as well.

From what I contacted with Andrzej later, in 2012, three days prior to UEFA Euro held in his home, they married in a local Catholic Church.

Again, I had very little idea of how their relations like because I am a foreigner, but I prayed the best for them and their family. As the day went out, I saw their marriage pic, it was lovely …

…

…

…

* * *

#####

When I briefly remembered that, I soon thought about it.

The flamenco.

But she was quick to respond:

"私はあなたにすぐに苦痛を与えます。" ( _I shall make you pain very soon._ )

After listening these, I understood that, she was about to strike back, so …

I guessed better take measure …

…

…

…

"What the hell you will do, Sachiko Shinozaki?"


	16. The end

"Sun will set today."

Immediately, I took my shot!

"BOOM!"

She responded after I cracked down her wall, but it was soon interrupted by my power. She, not ready to see a ghost hunter like me, tried to make a surprise run.

However, I was able to throw one thing: salt.

Ghosts were typically not immune with salt. Since she was a ghost, I could use that. Same applied to demons. She faced a bunch of salt hitting her, and immediate enough, she was affected. She felt a bit of strain and pains along her body, hence unable to run fast as she used to be.

The salt I threw weakened her ability of running seriously, give me a number of measuring time to handle it so. Sooner or later, salt might have a short effect, so better hurry up and done.

"Hey, you motherfucker!"

I pointed my gun into it: "Since the first dead body, I had realized how greedy this place. What the hell you want, Sachiko the ghost?"

"Huh?" She was shocked: "How? Who're you?"

"I'm … the son from the dead world." I told her: "And I came here, to end the shit."

A smash quickly collapsed the wall and she ran, I threw salt and it hit her, making her fell. As I said, the deal is the deal, I demanded her to cede her madness and left the spirits in peace.

What I didn't expect was how vengeful she was.

"You've done so many worst things, now I demand you to end your terror."

"I want … ARGGGHHHHHH …"

She was so vengeful that she wanted to murder me, leaving me to throw salt again, and even covered around her by salt. Then, I pointed on her again. I was quick to establish a salt circle blockading her.

My experience in Iraq allowed me to be quick.

"So, you cannot stop yourself."

Sachiko attempted to break, but my invisible wall disabled her from doing anything. She smeared on me and mocked me that I would be killed.

I laughed on her:

"So stupid you're. So childish, as your nature."

Once Tadeusz told me, not worth a cent, but now I liked it. Tadeusz told this when he was teaching a recruit of Polish Army. Hence, I understood this pretty much.

I spoke to Sachiko:

"Remember, an eagle will fall by being wounded, but when he rises, he will be even tougher and stronger." 

I warned her.

I mentioned the Polish story as a demand. Sachiko felt strange, and when I placed my gun, I just gave a spell.

I aimed my sword, and said:

"God, send this soul into Heaven and letting her to stop vengeance!"

When I cracked on it, surprisingly …

…

…

…

Boom!

She was gone! Never imagined it as well. Why?

She didn't appear again.

I would never understand it at all …


	17. Wszystko dla najlepszych

After that, I – Dora-the-Kid – just silently walked away. She had not been captured, but she had feared me that she was aware with my immunity over ghosts and anything related to demons.

Probably, since I was a demon myself.

I just walked out, but my reputation had been bolstered by that moment I came there. Called as "demon hunter", I earned a brief good money from there. But I didn't demand for fees, because I volunteered for it.

I walked away, but I still felt weird, how could a vengeful spirit want to kill so many people there? I didn't get it.

Still, my abilities to handle this monster came to occur in the right time. But, I would not forget the last moment when I saw from her face …

… she was about something else. She feared, she scared, and she had the buildup of an innocent girl being murdered.

What happened?

…

…

…

Still, I made me remember to a moment when we started to say goodbye to our Polish comrades in Iraq …

…

…

…

…

…

* * *

June 2008

Baghdad, Iraq

"Dla wszystkich żołnierzy odważnej Polski wszyscy wykonaliśmy wystarczająco dużo naszych obowiązków w Iraku. Były ofiary, byli polegli bohaterowie, byli ranni. Ale umarliśmy tam nie bezużytecznie. Jesteśmy dumni z dzieci odważnej Polski i mamy zaszczyt zaangażować się w zapewnienie stabilności i rozwoju Iraku." ( _For all soldiers of the brave Poland, we have all done enough our duties in Iraq. There were sacrifices, there were fallen heroes, there were injured. But we had died there not useless. We are proud as children of brave Poland, and we are honored to commit our duty for the stability and development of Iraq._ )

I heard deeply, and realized about the story of Polish Army was about to be closed. Still, they were honored to commit for their duty in Iraq, where they found themselves as heroic.

Iraq, an oasis of war, was proud to have the Poles in action.

And from my scene, I saw all Polish soldiers, they raised their right arms to head, saluted to all the Poles while slowing the flag of Poland, the white and red horizontal and giving command to a local Iraqi military commander, Abdullah Hasfi.

Colonel Borek Jankolewski, the representative of Polish command in Iraq, granted the duty for Abdullah Hasfi, a Lieutenant-General of Iraqi military in Baghdad.

By then, I could speak Arabic, very cool.

Tadeusz must be interested on. Dżemałudin Płiskiewicz, our Polish Tatar soldier, spoke on behalf of Polish Army there. Being a muslim made him easier to get speech with the Iraqi command.

"I hope Poland and Iraq will remain cooperative, and alliance against terrorism. On myself, representing Poland and the indigenous Lipka Tatar community, speak with our Iraqi brothers the word of God, we are brothers, regardless. Iraq will remain stable or not, depend on you, but we are always watching you to progress. Inshallah."

We are proud to be there. And we hope to do so, forever.

In this moment, Dżemałudin spoke about forgiveness, and gathered of truth, belief, resilience, and the way Lipka Tatars became a model of Islamic coexistence in Europe, believing that an Iraq with multicultural background would become like Lipka Tatars with Poland.

The Poles honored it.

The Iraqis took it, and saluted the Poles in response.

After then, the Poles started to depart away, walking to the plane, flying into the sky and left the base, officially marked the end of Polish presence in Iraq.

Other Polish battalions would also depart soon, so I was glad to thank. The flag of Poland gave me a feeling of strength, power and pride.

And so, when we walked out, we had no regret. I also decided to stay, but seeing the Poles left Iraq, I would miss them so much.

One thing I remembered that, in our lesson, forgiveness is the key.

And so be it …

…

…

…

* * *

Now, I saw everything in action again and again, the Poles would always remember.

Their power was the key reason why I could have defeated the spirit, but didn't harm. I thought that, I would love to go back again and again, to see how did it work and go.

I am certain of it, and hope so …


End file.
